Association for the Advancement of Science. 475 



have a very strongly marked graphitic character. They are of 

 very limited extent ; the greater portion of the sandstones, vehich 

 in this section exhibit a thickness of some thousand feet, belonging 

 to a series of much more recent date, and which has been subject- 

 ed to a much smaller amount of disturbance and alteration. The 

 exact relation of these, too, it has not been possible to observe- 

 This upper grouo contains many large stems, in all observed cases 

 prostrate, and in most cases giving evidence of great wear and 

 long exposure previously to being imbedded ; and in some of the 

 finer and more earthy deposits an abundance of leaves occur, of 

 the same general character as those already noticed as occurring 

 in Bunah and Tenasserim. This group was therefore provisionally 

 referred to the same age (pliocene). No traces of the great num- 

 mulitic series had been observed in this district. In the more 

 central portions of India three very large districts had' been exa- 

 mined, to which he would now refer. One of these was to the 

 south of Calcutta, in the district of Cuttack; the second included 

 all the country between the great coal-field of the Damoodah, 

 which had previously been mapped by Mr. Williams, and the River 

 Ganges, extending northwards to Kajmahal and Bhagulpore ; and 

 the third extended along the valley of the Nerbudda from west of 

 the Hosungabad to many miles east of Jubbulpur. For the details 

 of the first of these he was indebted chiefly to his able assistants^ 

 the Messrs Blandford ; for the last to Mr. Jos. Medlicott, who had 

 very zealously worked it out, having to carry on the formation of 

 a topographical map at the same time. In all these cases the 

 sedimentary rocks, to which he would refer, formed portions of a 

 series once more widely extended, and probably continuous ove 

 the whole country, now separated by denudation, from removal 

 by which they have been in great part protected, by being faulted 

 into and against the highly metamorphose gneiss, &c., which sur- 

 round them. The Talcheer field extends for about 70 miles from 

 east to west, with an average breadth of 15 to 20 miles, and is 

 bounded both on the north and south by great parallel faults, the 

 former of which has ah agregate throw of upwards of 2000 

 feet ; these faults are not truly east and west, but to the south of 

 east and north of west. The section in ascending order of the basin 

 shows at the base sandstone and blue shale, but slightly fossilife- 

 rous in thickness from 500 to 600 feet ; over these is a series of 

 shales and sandstones often micaceous, occasional beds of iionstone 

 and thin lays of coal and coally shale, giving a total thickness of 



