1835.] and Site of Fossil Bones in the Jumna. 271 



semblage of kankar deposits of various ages and appearance where it 

 is conspicuous by its size and thickness*. The bank on which these 

 have been formed, is a portion of the first alluvium stratum. 



The existence of these remains, in the position they occupy, bears 

 me out in the assertion that one-third of the rocks of the Jumna are 

 of a mechanical formation, and some may even possibly date their for- 

 mation within the memory of the present generation, that are now 

 some feet in thickness, and of very considerable extent ; others only in 

 embryo which may, on arriving at their full size, be able to turn the 

 course of the river. As 1 imagine three feet to be the maximum, 

 and half an inch the minimum, thickness in ordinary cases of any lay- 

 er deposited in one monsoon ; for at this season only does it receive 

 any considerable addition : the product of a heavy shower or short 

 continuance of unseasonable rain, I imagine to be very trifling ; the 

 ground being generally in so parched a state near the banks of the 

 river (where the drainage is so rapid and complete), that an ordinary 

 shower is absorbed, or nearly so before reaching it, producing no other 

 effect than a run in the deepest parts of each ravine, which ceases 

 almost as soon as the shower. 



Others, however, of the same formation are entitled to be consider- 

 ed of proportionally great antiquity; for if my position be established, 

 that it is to some peculiar quality of the water, combined with the 

 other consolidating bodies, we owe not only the majority of the rocks 

 of the Jumna, but the organic remains that have been or may be dis- 

 covered, there must be some instances of both existing, whose a°-es 

 must be coeval or nearly so with the river itself, as the same causes 

 must always produce the same effects, and once produced, their posi- 

 tions and appearance may be altered ; but the greater their age, the 

 more combined and natural do these substances become, until their 

 appearances present so little in consonance with conglomerates of the 

 most ancient structure, that nothing, but an examination equally mi- 

 nute with that I have bestowed on the subject, can distinguish between 

 them. Those having pretensions to antiquity are the ones occupying 

 levels to which the river seldom now ascends, and never continues at 

 such heights more than a few hours together, with others quite out of 

 the reach of the present highest levels. 



In the specimen before us, the form of each bone in its position in, 

 the deposit has been accurately preserved, but not in a state in the 

 slightest degree approaching what it would have been, had they been 

 exposed to the uninterrupted action of the water, which proves that 



* The plate referred to here in the MS. is omitted. — Ed. 



