550 J. G. Malcolmson, Esq., on the Fossils of 



west, nearLonar (lat. 20°, long. 76°, 30'), in the province of Aurungabad. Their 

 direction is W.N.W., and, as far as can at present be inferred, they seem to be 

 continuous to the east with numerous ranges of basaltic, sandstone, and gra- 

 nitic hills, extending to the Eastern Ghats, at the lower parts of the course of 

 the Godavery. The extreme breadth of the range, from the foot of the Nir- 

 mul pass to the town of Yedlabad, (nearly on a level with the plain country of 

 Berar,) is about 40 miles ; but several smaller hills having for the greater part 

 the same direction, are intimately connected with them to the north, as far as 

 the Wurdah river, which has an elevation of little more than GOO feet above 

 the sea. The Sichel hills are arranged in terraces, with steep sides having 

 projecting spurs, and their summits rise occasionally into conical elevations 

 with rounded or flat tops. They inclose narrow valleys abounding in streams, 

 or support table-lands covered with black soil strewed with trap boulders, and 

 having water everywhere near the surface. A thick wood and grass jungle, 

 composed of very different plants from those common on the granite hills, 

 cover the whole tract, with the exception of the flat summits and some of the 

 terraces, and render it unhealthy for the greater part of the year. The ba- 

 salt of which they are composed, is generally globular, the spheroids being 

 sometimes of great size ; but in many of the water-courses, even of the elevated 

 table-lands, it has a stratified appearance. Small basaltic columns are also met 

 with on the crests of some of the spurs and higher ridges ; and where they oc- 

 cur, no fossils and few minerals are found. Granite not only forms the base 

 of the hills at Nirmul to the south, and Yedlabad to the north, but part of 

 the mountains themselves, the basalt being seen to rest on decomposing gra- 

 nite about the centre of the range, in a deep ravine, through Avhich the 

 Koorm river passes ; it also again appears high in the table-land to the north 

 of that river, and in one of the terraces of the northern descent, where the 

 most extensive fossil beds were found. Further detail is unnecessary, as Dr. 

 Voysey's admirable description of theGawilghur mountains, forming the north- 

 ern boundary of the great and fertile valley of Berar, as these hills do its 

 southern limits, applies equally well to both ranges*. 



The fossils were first discovered in situ, near Munoor, in the basaltic table-land north of the 

 Koorm river; and were subsequently found in the descent of the hills towards Hutnoor, and in dif- 

 ferent parts of the Mucklegnudy pass, leading into the Berar valley. They consist of numerous gyro- 

 gonites ; two species of Cypris ; two, or perhaps three, species of Unio ; and many individuals refer- 

 able to the genera Paludina, Physa, and Limnea. (PI. XLVII.) The rock in whicli they occur, varies 

 in different places. Some of the finest specimens were procured from a red chert with scabrous 



* Asiatic Researches, vol. xviii. 



