318 Recent Fossil Fresh-water deposit, fyc. QNo. 148. 



with muriate and carbonate of soda, as to be utterly unfit for the pur- 

 poses of agriculture. Many of the springs in such situations are still 

 brackish, holding a portion of these salts in solution ; but are quite in- 

 adequate to have caused their diffusion in the superincumbent soil to 

 the present immense amount. 



It is difficult to classify a formation still going on, and to fix the 

 period, geologically, when it commenced, as it is seen in all rocks 

 from the granite to alluvium. We have sufficient evidence, however, 

 to divide it into two periods ; viz. that immediately prior to the depo- 

 sition of the regur, which it often underlies in thick beds, and the pre- 

 sent formation, going on. The kunker characterized by the remains 

 of the mastodon at Hingoli, and the kunker conglomerate imbedding 

 the mammoth near Nursingapore, like the travertin of Rome, which 

 imbeds the remains of this animal and of existing species of fresh-water 

 shells, may be referred to the post pleiocene period. 



Since the discovery of the first fossil bed I have found another near the 

 temple of Hoodelaity on the same range, of considerably greater extent, 

 being more than ten feet thick, resting on the ledge of a precipice thirty 

 feet above the present level of a stream formed by a thermal spring. 

 But not a vestige of the spring that deposited this bed is to be seen. 

 The stems and plants it fossilizes are in a much more distinct and per- 

 fect form, and in addition to Melania and Planorbis, I found fragments 

 of Unio, and a shell having the suborbicular shape of Cyrena with the 

 thinness of Cyclas ; two forms of fresh-water Conchifer that often pass 

 into each other ; the hinge was not visible. A very perfect impression 

 of a leaf, and a number of curious cylindrical bulbiform and reni- 

 form bodies, probably vegetable forms, were found. The vertical sur- 

 face of this cliff presents in its layers all the curved and geodic forms 

 seen in oriental agate, and imbeds solid fragments of a more ancient 

 kunker. The height of the sandstone cliffs forming the sides of the 

 fissure, (probably a fault,) I found, by a trigonometrical observation, to 

 be 75 feet from the bed of the stream. 



Specimens of some of the fossil shells, and supposed petrified vege- 

 table forms have been forwarded to the Museum of the Asiatic Society. 

 I have little doubt of the longer and thinner cylindrical bodies being stems 

 of grasses. They are seen in the rock fossilized in clusters upright as 

 they grew, with fresh-water shells half entangled about their roots. 



