HISLOP AND HUNTER NAGPUR. 379 



It may appear presumptuous in me to impugn the view of one who, 

 from personal as no less than hereditary claims, is entitled to the 

 utmost respect on the subject of vegetable remains. I feel, how- 

 ever, that the learned author has been led away by his distrust of 

 the evidence afforded by fragments of plants to rely on the more 

 uncertain indications of mere lithological phsenomena. Do strike, 

 dip, &c. furnish us with such strong testimony on the question of 

 age, that for their sake the Pnnkabarree shales are to be denied a 

 place with the Burdwan beds which have Ferns, Trizygia^ and Ver- 

 tebraria, and to be ranked, with the Siwalik rocks, which, I believe, 

 have none of the three ? Or, if the carbonaceous strata at both 

 places are allowed to be contemporaneous, are both to be classed as 

 Miocene or Pliocene, when the Bhuwan shales, which like them 

 exhibit " impressions of Fern-leaves, of Trizyyia, and Vertebrariai" 

 immediately underlie sandstones whose numerous fossils, not to 

 mention those of Burdwan itself, are decidedly not more recent than 

 Jurassic ? 



It only remains to add, that the age of the dolomitized limestone 

 cannot be expected to be determined by the evidence of fossils ; but, 

 as in other localities, it is not unfrequently found to alternate with 

 the shale c, it may be set down as nearly coeval with it; — thus 

 making the whole series of rocks from a to d to correspond with the 

 lower members of the great Jurassic formation, — reaching perhaps 

 from about the position of the Scarborough strata downwards into 

 the Lias. 



VIII. Plutonic and Metamorphic RocAs. — At the end of a paper 

 which has already extended to such a length, it would be unbecom- 

 ing to say much on this part of our subject. We have in the city of 

 Nagpur, and many localities to the east of it, the usual combinations 

 of gneiss and quartz-rock, mica and hornblende schist, vpith massive 

 granite. The peculiarity of the last-mentioned rock in the streets of 

 the capital is, that it is generally a pegmatite, consisting of flesh- 

 coloured crystals of felspar with quartz, disposed so as often to take 

 the appearance of graphic granite. But very frequently it occurs 

 with the felspar compact, in large white masses, which then have 

 much the appearance of a pure dull porcelain. In Nagpur the most 

 common rock is gneiss, passing into mica-schists. The former rock, 

 when fresh, is quarried, though not extensively, for building ; and 

 when disintegrated, for the repairing of the roads. But for both of 

 these purposes respectively trap, in the two conditions mentioned, is 

 preferred. Masses of white quartz appear here and there in the 

 city, some with crystals of black schorl, and others with scales of 

 gold-coloured mica. The range of plutonic hills on the west of 

 Kampti, which is indeed only a narrow prolongation of the great 

 granitic district in the Wein Ganga basin to the east, has been thrown 

 up by an eruption of granite corresponding nearly with the course of 

 the Kolar. The massive rock which lies in the channel of the river, 

 unlike that of Nagpur, is generally grey and very micaceous. Above 

 it, forming the N. base of the range, lies mica-schist, passing into 

 granular schistose quartz, which is overlaid by a stratum of dark- 



