1833.] 



Note on the Fossil Palms and Shells of Sugar. 



639 



Date. 



October 18th, 



26th, 



November 8th, 



16th, 



26 th, 



Time. 



1-55, p. m. severe, and ushered in 

 with a loud noise. 



10-37, a. m. slight. 

 5-35 a. m. slight. 

 At midnight, slight. 

 11-45 p. m. severe. 



In all, 39 shocks have been not- 

 ed : many slight ones have occur- 

 red besides. 



Remarks. 



Same character as last one ; was 

 felt slishtlv at Allahabad, lasted 

 here at least a minute. 



This was of the up and down 

 kind, lasted a minute, and occur- 

 ring at the full moon, when the 

 whole people of Nepal were pray- 

 ing atPasputnath, excited a great 

 commotion, and was the only in- 

 stance where the prophecies of the 

 Brahmins were realized, although 

 a hundred lucky moments had for 

 the last three months been deter- 

 mined on for the occurrence of 

 violent shocks. 



VII. — Note on the Fossil Palms and Shells lately discovered on the Table- 

 land of Sugar, in Central India. By H. H. Spry, Esq. Bengal Medical 

 Service. 



[Read at the Meeting of the 26th December.] 

 Some months since, when I forwarded a specimen of the silicified palm 

 trees, I stated that the trap hills about Sugar, which are at an eleva- 

 tion of upwards of 2000 feet above the sea, formed an amphitheatre, 

 not however in one continuous circle, but with here and there a break. 

 Within this circle of trap hills, I ought to have stated that a second jutted 

 out of compact red sandstone, but of a less elevated extent, being por- 

 tions of the great Vindya range. 



I took occasion to advert to the former of these two formations, 

 because it was at the foot of the portion that ranges along the JabaU 

 ptir road : the limestone bed (travertine and crystallized calcareous 

 spar) projects ; on which, mixed with the trap debris, the silicified fossil 

 trees are found. I lay stress on the word silicified, for it seems singular 

 that silex should be the fossilizing mineral of remains found on a calca- 

 reous bed. It would seem to indicate that the bed these remains now 

 repose on could not have been the place of their growth*, but that they 

 must have been projected from a distance; and yet the distance could 

 not have been great, for although the splintered condition of the trunks 

 would indicate that a powerful force had been applied, the attachment 

 still of all the tender tendrils, so peculiar to the palmata species, to the 

 thicker parts of the roots, and which, though perfectly fossilized, may 



* The constant occurrence of flints in chalk is sufficient to outweigh this objec- 

 tion. — Ed. 



