566" J. G. Malcolmson, Esq.^ on the Fossils of 



The sandstone and argillaceous limestone I have myself traced, from the 

 neighbourhood of Nagpoor nearly to the junction of the Wurdah with the 

 Godavery, bearing the same characters as in the vicinity of the fossil beds ; 

 and I have collected specimens of the same rocks at various places between 

 this and Badrachellum and the diamond mines in the neighbourhood of the 

 Kistnah. This tract, for 250 miles, is nearly an uninterrupted forest, and 

 presents many difficulties in the investigation of its geological structure. 

 Trap rocks and basaltic soil occur in many parts of the course of the Go- 

 davery, and granite of the usual character is occasionally met with. Dr. 

 Voysey, who investigated great part of it with his usual accuracy, describes 

 the sandstone as constituting a range of mountains 60 miles in extent, to 

 the north-west of Badrachellum ; and the surface rock 20 miles south of 

 Ellore (near the alluvial plains of the Kistnah and the diamond mines), also at 

 Mungapett on the Godavery, where 1 found silicified wood resembling that 

 of Pondicherry*. Fossil wood was also seen by Mr. Geddes strewed over 

 the country N.W. of this point, towards the junction with the Wurdah. 

 Where the sandstone of the Godavery meets the granite to the west. Dr. 

 Voysey states that it can hardly be recognised as the same rock, consisting of 

 a conglomerate containing quartz, felspar, and rounded pieces of granite re- 

 sembling that of the eastern ghats. The argillaceous limestone occurs in the 

 same district, and is more widely distributed than Dr. Voysey supposed. He 

 found it at an elevation of 2600 feet above the sea, and exhibiting marks of 

 great disturbance, dipping to the S.E., and at the summits of the hills inter- 

 mixed with quartz rockf. Dr. Voysey considers these formations at the lower 

 part of the Godavery, to be the same as those of the Kistnah and Pennar; and 

 in this opinion I fully coincide, although 1 have found the continuity of the 

 sandstone and argillaceous limestone to be interrupted by a narrow band of 

 granite, extending from the delta of the Kistnah to the granitic platform of 

 the Deckan. Some of the hills, however, have caps of sandstone. In the 

 present state of our knowledge, it is difficult to form any correct notion as to 

 the dip and direction of these rocks. Indications of derangement and eleva- 

 tion by the granite are, however, sufficiently apparent. 



Sandstones and schists of the same characters, and associated with the same 

 rocks, are also extensively distributed along the great tributaries of the Kist- 

 nah, in the southern Mahratta country, near the western ghats, and a little to 



* Journal of the Asiatic Society, vol. ii., p. 402. The tenor of Dr. Voysey's observations in 

 this place seem to show that he considered the " clay slate," in wliich he included the sandstone, 

 to belong to the same formation as the limestone ; a conclusion I had formed before meeting with 

 his paper, and which has not been expressly stated in any of his writings yet given to the public. 



t The structure of the wood is beautifully preserved: it is coniferous. June 24, 1839. 



