1845.] Notes on the South Mahratta Country, fyc. 295 



Under the head of Transition he has included the gneiss and talc 

 schist of Dammul, Nurgoond and Gairsuppa. The chlorite and clay 

 slates, silicious schists and quartzite of Darwar, Kittore, and in short, 

 the schists of the whole of the central and southern parts of the Darwar 

 districts, together with the limestone of Kulladghi and Bagulcotta. 



Some clay slates associated with these limestones he has classed 

 among the grauwacke group, and the sandstone with the old red sand- 

 stone. 



This classification has been apparently grounded on mineral resem- 

 blance of the schists to the transition rocks of Werner, their in gene- 

 ral highly inclined strata, and on the circumstance of the sandstone 

 resting, in some localities, on the schists in unconformable, and almost 

 horizontal stratification. These facts, without the additional evidence 

 of organic remains, and in the total absence of any associated stratum 

 the age of which has been distinctly ascertained, would hardly be 

 deemed by geologists of the present day, sufficiently conclusive to 

 warrant the rocks of the S. Mahratta country being referred to the 

 same epochs as the transition, grauwacke and old red sandstonejrocks 

 of Europe, as now defined. 



Werner, in his improvement of the system of Lehman who divided 

 rocks into three classes, viz. : 



1st. Primitive : comprising plutonie or granitic rocks, and the hypo- 

 gene or metamorphic schists formed with the world, and containing no 

 fragments of other rocks ; 



2nd. Secondary : including the aqueous and fossiliferous strata which 

 resulted from the partial debris of the primitive rocks by a general 

 revolution ; 



3rd. Alluvial : comprehending the debris of local floods and of the 

 Deluge of Noah — 



intercalated a 4th class between the 1st and 2nd class, and under this 

 head he placed a series of strata, which he thought formed a passage 

 between Lehman's primitive and secondary rocks, hence called 

 transition, assimilating on the one hand to the crystalline structure of 

 mica, and clay slates, and on the other, evincing traces of a mecha- 

 nical origin, and orgauic remains. These beds were chiefly of clay slate 

 arenaceous rock, coralline and shelly limestone, and grauwacke, a grey 

 argillaceous sandstone, often schistose, imbedding small fragments of 

 quartz, flinty slate, or basanite, and clay slate, cemented together 



2 T 



