1875.] H. H. Godwin- Austen— Geology of tie Dafla Hills. 139 



The translation will appear in No. II of Part I of this year's Journal, 

 Four photographs forwarded by the author were also exhibited, viz., views 

 of the Mosque which Aurangzib built upon Rama's birthplace, of the Mani- 

 parbat, Svargadvar, and of an old Mosque in Faizabad. 



5. Notes on tlie Geology of part of the Dafla Hills, Assam; lately 

 visited oy the Force under Brigadier- General Stafford, C. B. — By Majoe 

 H. H. Godwin- Attsten. • 



(Abstract.) 



The most interesting and important portion of this paper is that in 

 which certain beds on the Dikrang river are described and considered to be 

 the representatives of the Damuda Series recently worked out along the base 

 of the Darjiling and Western Bhutan mountains by Mr. F. R. Mallet of 

 the Geological Survey of India and first brought to notice by Dr. J. D. 

 Hooker as long ago as 1849. The section in question included a thick seam 

 of black carbonaceous matter 5 to 6 feet thick. This shale or rather crushed 

 splintery coal is stated to have exactly the fiakey structure described by 

 Mr. Mallet and would probably have to be worked up into an artificial fuel. 

 The maximum thickness of this Damuda Series is estimated at 1000 feet. 

 The paper concludes with a description of the recent river-terraces at the 

 junction of the Dikrang and the Tanir Juli, of the geological features of 

 the Burroi Gorge, and of the alluvial deposits of the Bisnath Plain, which 

 last are considered to be of the same age as the clay plateau at Tezpur and 

 in other parts of Assam. 



The paper will be published in full in the Journal, Part II, No. 1, 

 1875, with a section through the part of the hills traversed. 



Mr. Medlicott remarked upon the importance of Major Godwin-Aus- 

 ten's rediscovery of the Damuda rocks so far to the east. Mr. F. R. Mallet 

 had traced them from Punkabari to near Dalingkot. For some dis- 

 tance beyond Daling the frontier keeps clear of the hills ; and when Mr. 

 Mallet again took up the section in the Western Duars, the Damudas do 

 not appear ; but on the same apparent horizon there occur rocks not seen to 

 the West, among which a crystalline dolomite is prominent, forming very 

 striking physical features. Mr. Mallet called this the Buxa series. Now 

 it is remarkable that when the Damudas reappear to the east, these Buxa 

 beds seem again to be wanting. Major* Godwin-Austen could not have 

 failed to notiee them. The fact suggests the equivalence of those highly 

 contrasting deposits. 



The general relation of the Damudas to the contiguous rocks would 

 seem to be the same in the Dafla country as in Sikkim ; but Major Godwin- 

 Austen's observations do not throw any special light upon the rather start- 

 ling interpretation, Mr. Mallet had adopted for the Sikkim section : that the 



