1864.] Proceedings of the Asiatic Society. 67 



Mr. Oldham was then invited to read his paper submitted in 

 October, entitled " Notes on the Fossils in the Society's Collection 

 reputed to be from Spiti ;" and that gentleman, after objecting to the 

 postponement of the paper, proceeded to read it. 



The Chairman remarked on the objections raised by Mr. Oldham, 

 that his paper, though announced at the October meeting, had not 

 been read on account of Mr. Oldham's absence from that and the 

 following meeting. 



An interesting discussion ensued between Mr. Oldham and Mr. 

 Blanford as to the identity or otherwise of these fossils with those of 

 the Gerard collection. 



Mr. Oldham then exhibited to the Society a small collection of 

 stone implements which had very recently been discovered by Messrs. 

 King and Foote of the Geological Survey of India, near Madras, 

 These were all of the ruder forms, so well known as characterizing the 

 flint implements which had excited so much attention within the last 

 few years in Europe. They were all formed of dense semi-vitreous 

 quartzite — a rock which occurred in immense abundance in districts 

 close to where these implements had been found, and which formed 

 a very good substitute for the flints of north Europe. This was the 

 first instance in which, so far as he knew, such stone implements had 

 been found in India in situ. True celts of a totally different type 

 and much higher finish, and in every respect identical with those 

 found in Scotland and Ireland, had been met with in large numbers in 

 Central India, but never actually imbedded in any deposits. They 

 were invariably found under holy trees, or in sacred places, and were 

 objects of reverence and worship to the people, who could give no 

 information as to the source from which they had been originally 

 gathered together. A single and very doubtful fragment of a stone 

 implement had been found by Mr. W. Theobald, Junior, in examining 

 the deposits of the Gangetic plains near the Soane river. This occur- 

 red in the Kunkurry clay of that district ; but, with this exception, 

 he was not aware of any stone implements, of any kind, having 

 previously been noticed in situ anywhere in India Those now on 

 the table had been collected partly by himself, from a ferruginous 

 lateritic gravel bed, which extended irregularly over a very lar^e 

 area west of Madras. In places this was at least fifteen feet below 

 the surface, cut through by streams, and in one such place from which 



K 2 



