HISLOP AND HUNTER NAGPUR. 355 



the greater number of instances the shell has been completely 

 absorbed, and employed as a cement in aggregating the particles of 

 the rock. A similar deposit is seen at Nagalwao?a near Elichpur, to 

 the west of our area ; but there, in addition to the fossils just men- 

 tioned, it includes Limnceus, Planorbis, and Unio. On the banks of 

 the Sarpan River, near Tondakheiri, 14 miles N.W. of Nagpur, 

 there is an accumulation of the freshwater shells previously enume- 

 rated, with a considerable intermixture of a species of Bithinia and 

 a few specimens of land shells — Helix and Bulitnus. Mingled with 

 these remains of MoUusca, there was a quantity of jaws, vertebrae, 

 and other portions of Mammalia, which were not much petrified ; 

 but, I regret to say, they were accidentally destroyed before they 

 could be examined*. In the bank of the Kanhan at Kampti about 

 45 feet under the general surface I found the shoulder-bone of some 

 mammifer, much increased in weight from the process of petrifaction. 

 Bones in the same state have been discovered lying above ground, 

 between Nagpur and Kampti, which must have been washed out of 

 the kankaraceoQS red soil. 



Judging from the relation of the regur and red soil to the brown 

 clay, I am inclined to regard these two formations as contempora- 

 neous ; and, from the evidence of the fossils contained in the latter, 

 I would class both as Post Pliocene. 



II. The Bj'ovm Clay, on which I have said both the red and black 

 superficial deposits rest, averages, together with its underlying Con- 

 glomerate, a depth of 20 feet. The clay is not known to be fossili- 

 ferous, but in Takli Plain there were found in the conglomerate 

 apparently the tusks of a large mammal, which had been completely 

 converted into stone, but they were so much affected by the weather 

 as to fall to pieces on being removed. The formation containing 

 them, I suppose, should be assigned to the Newer Pliocene, and will 

 rank with similar deposits at Jabbalpur and elsewhere. 



III. Laterite. — This formation seldom exceeds 10 feet in depth 

 anywhere in our area. No fossils have yet been discovered in it 

 here, but diamond-mines have been opened in it east of Nagpur. 

 Malcolmson f , and after him Newbold, inferred the identity of the 

 sandstone of Central with that of Southern India, from the existence 

 of diamonds at Weiragac?, a town about 80 miles S.E. of the capital. 

 The inference, however, is drawn from erroneous premises, which 

 would have been corrected, had these authors personally visited the 

 spot. At Weiraga</ there is no sandstone near the diamond-mines ; 

 the only rock in the vicinity is quartzose and metamorphic. It 

 has been too much taken for granted, in my opinion, that the 

 diamond-conglomerate of Southern India is connected with the 

 sandstone, within tracts of which it is sometimes found ; and hence 

 the arenaceous strata of the Peninsula have actually come to be 



* Some fragmentary bones, from the banks of the Sarpan, imbedded in a sandy 

 earth and associated with numbers of Melania, Paludina, and Unio, form part of 

 the series of organic remains forwarded by Messrs. Ilislop and Hunter. The bones, 

 having been kindly examined by Prof Owen, prove to have belonged to Ruminants 

 of two sizes, — such as a Buffalo and a small Antelope. — Ed. 



t Bomb. Br. R. As. Soc. Jour. vol. i. p. 250. 



2 B 2 



