﻿1861.] 



HISLOP NAGPUIt SANDSTONE AND COAL. 



347 



Nagpur, and Chorkheiri, which is 35 miles to the north-east, while 

 Chanda is situated 85 miles to the south. At all these places the 

 thin-bedded sandstone with vegetable remains is the same, as it pre- 

 sents the same appearances both palaeontological and lithological. 



2. Barkoi and Mahddewa Hills. — That this thin-bedded sandstone 

 is identical with the coal-shale at Little Barkoi, near Umret, and at 

 the base of the Mahadewa Hills, in the N.N.W. part of Nag-pur pro- 

 vince, I have ascertained by personal inspection, and have endea- 

 voured to prove in the Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc, vol. xi. p. 555. At 

 all the localities already named, arenaceous as well as carbonaceous, 

 there is a similar group of fossils ; and at Bokhara, an acknowledged 

 site of the plant-sandstone, there is a tendency among the strata, 

 which are usually white, to become brown and carbonaceous through 

 the abundance of their comminuted vegetable matter. 



3. Western Bengal. — That the plant- sandstone and carbonaceous 

 beds of Nagpur are of the same age as the coal- strata of Western 

 Bengal, I have attempted to show in the ' Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc.' 

 he. cit. The rocks of both provinces have embedded the same flora, 

 including species of Pecopteris, Glossoptens, and Tamiopteris, Verte- 

 braria Indica*, Trizygia (or Sphenophyllurn) speciosa, a species of 

 Phyllotheca, and a stem, which M c Clelland has erroneously named 

 Poaches muricata. Many more points of resemblance, I have no 

 doubt, will be discovered when the Bengal strata shall have been 

 more carefully examined. 



4. Mdngali. — Thus far I may calculate on a general concurrence 

 in my conclusions ; but, when I embrace in this comparison some 

 thin-bedded, red, argillaceous sandstone at Mangali and Mesa, about 

 60 miles south of Nagpur, difficulties arise, and a difference of 

 opinion has been expressed. In a Report on the Talchee Coal- 

 field, by Messrs. Blanford and Theobald, the authors seem disposed 

 to place the Mangali beds above the plant-sandstone and coal ; and, 

 as they consider the former Permian, the two latter they regard as 

 at least of that agef. It must be admitted there is some apparent 

 ground for this view. The strata within the semicircle north of 

 Nagpur, and at the other localities mentioned in paragraph 1, are 

 of a whitish hue ; those at Mangali are of a brick-red colour. In the 

 former the fossils, with the exception of an Insect's wing found at 

 Kampti, are exclusively vegetable ; in the latter they are chiefly 

 animal. In the one Ferns abound, in the other not one has 

 hitherto been discovered ; but, instead of them, we have the rep- 

 tilian Brachyops laticeps (Owen), an undescribed species (if not 

 two) of the crustacean Esilieria, and the jaws and scales of 

 ganoid Fishes. Yet this distinction in colour and fossil contents 

 most probably depends on a difference, not of time, but of local 

 condition ; for, with all the dissimilarity, there are numerous points 

 of agreement. The strata near Nagpur and Chanda, and those at 

 Mangali, intermediate between these two places, though differing in 



* Vertebraria and Trizygia are not recognized in the preceding paper by Sir 

 C. Bunbury as occurring in the plant-bearing sandstones of Nagpur. — Editor. 

 t Mem. Geol. Surv. of India, vol. i. pt. 1, p. 82. 



