86 Mr. Kaye on Fossiliferous Beds in Southern India. 



west, you again come upon red sand with quartz pebbles, which here contains a 

 vast quantity of sihcified wood ; and, at a distance of about sixteen miles from the 

 sea, this is again bounded by hills of black granite. 



It is much to be regretted that the generally undulating surface of the country 

 nowhere affords anything like a section: it is still therefore a desideratum to 

 ascertain the relative position of the Hraestone and sandstone ; though a variety of 

 circumstances lead to the inference, that the hmestone is the more recent of the 

 two*. The annexed diagram illustrates the general character of the surface of the 

 country. 



Observing that the pavement of the streets of Pondicherry and the steps of many 

 of the houses were replete with marine shells in a very good state of preservation, 

 I was induced, towards the close of 1840 (although totally unused to geological 

 investigation), to visit the quarries from which the stone was obtained. I found 

 them very near the surface, and not exhibiting any section of the strata ; but this 

 visit put me in possession of several characteristic fossils, and led me to repeat 

 the visit at subsequent opportunities ; so that, in the course of the following year, 

 I was enabled to make a very complete collection of the organic remains of the 

 Pondicherry limestone. 



The limestone which contains these fossils does not occupy an area of more than 

 three or four square miles. It forms an undulating plain, and is bounded, both on 

 the east and on the west, by a formation of red sandstone. The country rises gra- 

 dually towards the west, and it is in this direction that the petrified trees, already 

 alluded to, are found in great numbers. The wood, found in the limestone, is 

 always converted into a calcareous substance ; but these trees are silicified ; and 

 while the former has in every instance been pierced by the Teredo, and bears other 

 marks of having long been the sport of the waves, the silicified wood is never 

 touched by the worm, nor do the trees bear any other sign of having been water- 

 worn, than that they are always denuded of their branches and roots. Some of 

 these trees are of vast size ; one of them we traced, partly buried in the red sand, to 

 the length of nearly 100 feet. Those which are more completely cleared of the soil 

 bear a perfect resemblance to recent trunks of fallen trees, and are in every respect 

 more perfect and more interesting than the celebrated petrified forest of Cairo, 

 which I have since visited. They are all of them apparently of the same descrip- 

 tion ; they are coniferous trees, and being grouped together within the space of a 

 few miles, and bearing no appearance of having been long subjected to the action 

 of water, they cannot have been removed to any distance from the spot where 



* In a more recent account of these beds by Captain Newbold the sandstone is described as " lateritic 

 grit," and therefore much newer than the limestone. See Journal of Asiatic Society, vol. viii. pp. 214, 

 240. Ed. 



