DAMUDA SERIES. 31 



the Darjiling beds, and the impossibility of tracing the outcrops for any 

 distance. 



It has been found in tracing the Damudas westward from Raniganj 

 up the valley of the Damuda, and into Riwa, that the ironstone shales 

 and Raniganj groups gradually change in lithological characters. The 

 ironstone shales, as such lithologically, become extinct, and the supposed 

 equivalents of the Raniganj beds contain no coal. It is quite possible 

 that the series may change its character to the north also. But if it 

 does not do so, and if I am right in correlating the Darjiling Damudas 

 with the Haniganj beds, the lower groups must have been denuded 

 away along the southern face of the Himalayas, after the whole had 

 been tilted up on edge, and before the deposition of the Tertiaries ; 

 or more improbably, dropped down by a fault. In either case they 

 would be still present under ground, and may one day or other be 

 found outcropping in some hitherto unexplored part of the mountains. 

 The leading alternative suppositions are, that the Darjiling Damudas 

 represent the Barakars, and that the upper groups die out to the north, 

 or else change in lithological character. In the latter case they would be 

 represented in a sub-metamorphosed condition by the lower Daling beds. 



Not often, but still occasionally, one meets with seams of earbona- 

 No Damudas folded ceous or graphitic schist amongst the Daling 

 gLr s l\ D B^lh e w beds ; thei ' e is a la ^r of this kind, 2 feet thick, 

 tor y* exposed by the Pankabari and Karsiang road a 



few hundred yards below Kodabari, and another, some 30 feet thick, on 

 the cart road, a little south of the road location at Karjang. 



These, however, are clearly true Daling beds (and in the above cases 

 near the top of the series) and not Damudas brought up again to the 

 surface by foldings of the strata on a bold scale. The Damudas in their 

 most altered condition, as they are seen in the Lehti naddi for instance 

 (p. 28), have been metamorphosed quite as much as the Daling beds 



( 31 ) 



