484 proceedings of the geological society. [junc 17, 



June 17, 1868. 



Charles Baron Clarke, Esq., F.L.S., Fellow of Queen's College, 

 Cambridge, Barrister-at-law, Dacca, Hindoostan ; and Flaxman 

 Charles John Spnrrell, Esq., Belvedere, S.E., were elected Fellows. 



The following commnnications were read : — 



1. On the Distribution of Stone Implements in Southern India. 



By B. Bruce Foote, Esq., F.G.S., of the Geological Survey of 



India. 

 The circumstances under which chipped implements, similar in form 

 to those occurring in the gravels of Western Europe, are found over 

 a considerable part of Southern India * are very interesting, as they 

 appear to prove that great changes in the physical geography of the 

 Indian peninsula have taken place since the time when the imple- 

 ment-makers first inhabited the country. 



By far the greatest number of the clupped-stone implements have 

 been found in close connexion with the laterite deposits of the 

 eastern coast. Many implements were found in situ, buried in the 

 laterite ; and many more lay scattered over the surface of the laterite, 

 from which they had evidently been weathered out. A considerable 

 number also were collected oif the surface of underlying older rocks, in 

 places where laterite deposits had once existed, but had subsequently 

 been almost entirely removed by denudation, and had often left but 

 faint traces, in the shape of scattered debris. Other implements, 

 again, have been discovered on the surface in other parts of the 

 country, where no distinct traces could be seen of the formations 

 from which they might have been weathered out. Whatever may 

 have been the nature of these latter deposits, the great elevation at 

 which they occur above the lower country precludes, in the absence 

 of any evidence to the contrary, the idea that they were of the same 

 marine origin as the coast laterite. 



It is not at all improbable that they may once have been enve- 

 loped in freshwater deposits which have since been destroyed by 

 denuding agencies, while only the heaviest included bodies, such as 

 the coarse shingle and implements, were left behind as evidences of 

 the former existence of such formations. 



Besides the above, a few implements have also been found in un- 

 questionably fluviatile formations ; but none have been obtained from 

 any deposits known to be more ancient than the laterite, nor have 

 the younger alluvia, whether marine or fluviatile, yielded any that 

 could not be shown to have been washed down from immediately 

 adjoining lateritic beds. 



The position occupied by the laterite along the coast is that of a 

 belt running parallel with the general coast-line, but broken through 



* For an account of the discovery of these implements see the ' Proceedings 

 of the Asiatic Society of Bengal,' 1844, p. 67 ; also ' Madras Joiirnal of Litera- 

 ture and Science,' October 1866 (third series, pt. 2): — "On the occurrence of 

 Stone implements in Lateritic formations in various parts of the Madras and 

 North Arcot Districts," by E. Bruce Foote, Geological Survey of India, with 

 notes by WiUiam King, jun., BA., Greological Survey of India. 



Some copies of this paper were struck oiF and circulated in June 1865. 



