1865.] FALCONEB NILE AND GANGES. 379 



pure calcareous concretions called nodular kankar. Near the base 

 of the lower half these calcareous deposits were developed in much 

 greater force, sometimes forming strata of rock kankar, from Ig foot 

 to 2 feet thick, with a thinner bed of clay interposed. At one point, 

 Burlot, below the junction of the Chambal river, where the bank is 

 precipitous and 100 feet high, a stratum of rock kankar, in the 

 form of a granular concrete 2 feet thick, was observed 60 feet above 

 the lowest level of the stream. But the most ordinary condition of 

 the material is the concretionary, in the form of nodular botryoidal 

 stalactite or ramified kankar. In some places the concretions, closely 

 compacted and connected by veins, are disposed in horizontal strata 

 in clay, at 10 or 12 feet above the level of the stream ; in others 

 the kankar presents itself in vertical seams in the scarped front 

 of the bank, or it ramifies in every direction through the clay, lite- 

 rally lacing it together ; and occasionally ancient surfaces of sim- 

 cracked clay, where denuded, are seen with the fissures filled with 

 septarian plates of the same material. At one point, Kareem-khan, 

 slab Iccmhar, used for building-purposes, and consisting of fine sand 

 soUdified by carbonate of lime, is quarried at shallow depths from 

 under the bed of the river. Captain Smith (from whose memoir the 

 above particulars are for the most part drawn) has given an excel- 

 lent series of highly instructive sketches, Rowing the various modes 

 in which the kankar occurs along the banks of the Jumna. 



2. Mammalian Fossils. — Fluviatile shells were either extremely 

 rare, or they escaped the notice of individuals who were not fami- 

 liar with this walk of observation. Only two instances are recorded, 

 — one an open Unio, imbedded in a perforated sandy clay near the 

 level of the river ; the other, marks of shells in the granular con- 

 crete of rock kankar, found at 60 feet above the stream, at Burlot. 

 But fossil bones were encountered in great abundance. In one 

 case, unconnected with the operations above referred to, the ske- 

 leton of a fossil Elephant was discovered in a bed of clay deposited 

 on a bottom of kankar, overflowed by the water of the river during 

 the floods, about three miles above Calpee. Some of the remains 

 were forwarded in 1828 to the Asiatic Society of Bengal. In 

 another case the skeleton of an Elephant, forming a great mass, 

 was observed, by Mr. E. Dean, lying amongst an immense assem- 

 blage of kankar-deposits, contained in the lowest stratum of 

 clay intersected by the river, under the village of Pauch-kowrie, 

 near Korah Jehanabad. The stratum forms a bank, there elevated 

 4i feet above the highest flood-mark, and 80 feet below the sum- 

 mit of the cliff; and abreast of it the Jumna has deepened its 

 bed 25 feet. Numerous other organic remains occurred in the 

 masses of other deposits surrounding the skeleton, but the precise 

 kinds were not ascertained. In a third ease, a very large tusk of an 

 Elephant, stated to have been 8 inches in diameter, was discovered 

 lying beneath a plate or slab of kankar in removing obstructions 

 from the bed of the Jumna, near Adbde. The ivory was fossilized, 

 but not petrified ; and the Sepoys engaged on the work broke it up, 

 and burnt it for pipeclay to whiten their belts. 



