C PROCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



culated, although its general effect must have been to prevent any 

 accumulation of deposit in the same ratio as afterwards, and from 

 this cause alone the rate of filling up must have been a perpetually 

 varying one. 



You are aware that the Messrs. Schlagintweit, whose observations 

 on the elevation and physical structure of the Alps are so well known, 

 have proceeded to India for the purpose of making similar physical 

 and meteorological observations on the mighty chain of the Himalaya 

 and its lateral ranges. On their journey from Cairo to Suez they 

 made some interesting geological observations. Mr. A. Schlagintweit 

 writes as follows to his friend and patron A. von Humboldt : — " The 

 greater portion of the sand of the desert appears to have been de- 

 rived from the easily disintegrating tertiary formations which exist in 

 large masses along the edge of the desert. The desert is decidedly a 

 marine formation. We had the good fortune, a little to the south of 

 Station No. 12, to discover a series of well-preserved sea-beach terraces, 

 about 200 feet above the present level of the sea, containing nume- 

 rous marine Mollusca, as Ostrea, Cardium, and Cyprcea, with Cidaris, 

 which cannot be specifically distinguished from the corresponding 

 species which I obtained at Suez from the Red Sea." These remarks 

 are interesting, as pointing to the greater extension of the Red Sea 

 northwards at a former period, and almost proving the connexion 

 within recent geological periods between the Red Sea and the 

 Mediterranean. 



India. — From India and our Eastern colonies and possessions we 

 have not received many communications during the past year. But 

 I must not omit to mention that the Rev. Mr. Hislop has forwarded 

 to us a paper on the connexion of the Umret coal-beds with the plant- 

 beds of Nagpur, and of both of these with those of Burdwan. It 

 will be recollected that some time ago Messrs. Hislop and Hunter 

 sent to this country a valuable collection of fossil plants from the 

 sandstones of Nagpur, and it may be observed, that it is in conse- 

 quence of the identification of the Nagpur flora with that of the coal- 

 fields of Umret that Mr. Hislop has been able to fix the position of 

 the coal-formation of India. In a former communication on the Ju- 

 rassic formation of the Nagpur territory, Mr. Hislop described it as 

 consisting of four members in the following descending order : — 



1. Thick-bedded coarse ferruginous sandstone, with a few stems 



of trees. 



2. Laminated sandstone, rich in vegetable remains. 



3. Clay-shales of various colours, with traces of reptiles and 



worms. 



4. Limestone, generally crystalline. 



On that occasion Mr. Hislop stated that he considered the Indian 

 coal-measures as the equivalent of No. 3. Subsequent discoveries 

 have led him to the conclusion that their true position is amongst 

 the beds immediately below the ferruginous sandstone No. 1 . 



The arrangement of the strata of what Mr. Hislop calls the Indian 

 freshwater Oolitic formation is consequently somewhat modified in 



