3/4 PROCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



vestigatioii, they find that the carboniferous beds of Umret and the 

 Mahadewa Hills are true representatives of the Burdwan coal of 

 Bengal, and are referable, not to the Nagpur shales (c), but to the 

 Nagpur sandstone with plants (b). About six months since the 

 authors were enabled to visit* the coal-bearing deposits at Umret 

 and the plant-beds of Bhuwan at the foot of the PachmaJi or Maha- 

 dewa Hills, 120 miles north of Nagpur, some notice of which was 

 given to the Society by Lieut. Sankeyf. A few miles north of 

 Umret there occurs a descending series of sandstone, coal, argilla- 

 ceous, bituminous, and sandy shales, and sandstone. The shales here 

 represent the plant-bearing sandstone of Nagpur. At the Mahadewa 

 Hills the overlying sandstone (which, like that of Umret and of 

 Nagpur, is characterized by iron-bands) is of much greater thickness 

 than to the south. Under this sandstone of the Mahadewas come 

 green shales and bituminous shales, equivalent to those of Umret. 

 From the examination also of the fossil plants (Vertebraria, Trizyyia, 

 Phyllotheca, Cyclopteris, Glossopteris, Pecopteris, and Spheno- 

 pteris) plentifully occurring in all these localities, the same conclu- 

 sion is arrived at, namely, that the shales of Umret and the Maha- 

 dewas are truly equivalent to the plant-bearing sandstone of Nagpur, 

 which last, indeed, in some places has argillaceous modifications. 

 The bituminous shales of Kota, on the Pranhita, appear to belong 

 to the same series, and underlie the iron-banded sandstone, as in 

 other localities. The Kota shales have aiforded fish-remains of a 

 Jurassic type {Lepidotus and JEchmodus) ; and at one place, Man- 

 gali, between Kota and Nagpur, the equivalent of the Nagpur plant- 

 bearing sandstone has yielded the Labyrinthodont Reptilian skull, 

 lately described in the Society's Journal by Prof. Owen. The ex- 

 tension of the bituminous and anthracitic shales in other localities, 

 namely, Duntimnapilly, Singra, on the Bagin River, Umla Ghat, &c., 

 is alluded to by the authors in their recent communication ; and they 

 remark, that, on the south, north, and east of the Nagpur territory, 

 the carboniferous shales are thus seen to hold the same relation with 

 the overlying iron-banded sandstone ; and that, though it is difficult to 

 comprehend the Burdwan coal-field in the comparison, as it lies in a 

 basin and has no overlying formation, yet the fossils are very similar 

 to those of the Mahadewas, Umret, and Nagpur, and bear evident 

 proof of the contemporaneity of the whole. — July 1855. — Ed.] 



Thickness of the Strata. — a. The highest beds as exposed in the 

 quarries of Silewac?a and Bokhara average about 25 feet of coarse 

 sandstone with iron-bands ; below which there are 15 feet of argil- 

 laceous sandstone, b, with an abundance of fossils, and an undeter- 

 mined depth of coarse sandstone beneath. These constitute what 

 Dr. Carter, in an able ' Summary of Indian Geology,' which I have 

 just received, calls the Panna sandstone. From outcrops of this 

 subdivision of the sandstone series in other localities near Nagpur, 



[* A notice of the results of this visit was read at the Meeting of the Society, 

 June 13, 1855.] 



[t Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. vol. x. p. 55.] 



