1865.] Proceedings of the Asiatic Society. 91 



fibre. No fossils were found, and the search for leaves which might 

 indicate the nature of the vegetation that had produced the lignite, was 

 unsuccessful. The author was equally unsuccessful in finding any 

 regular bands of lignite. 



The outcrop of the sandstones was covered with what appeared at 

 first to be an unstratified talus, but when a section was obtained, it was 

 found to be horizontally bedded, and therefore quite unconformable on 

 the sandstones. About 150 feet of the surface beds were exposed in 

 section. They were composed of sandy clay and semi-angular gravel 

 with scattered, partly water-worn masses of rock, some of large size. 

 The plateau of Buxa is probably in highest level of the horizontally 

 stratified gravels. 



Mr. Blanford remarked that the beds containing the lignite 

 appeared to be similar to those long since described by Mr. Cole- 

 brooke in the 1st volume of the Trans. Geological Society, as form- 

 ing the banks of the Teista where that river debouches from the 

 hills. There also they contain lignite, their dip and position are 

 similar, and the leaves which were there found prove them to be of 

 Tertiary date. It seemed probable that they were of the same age as 

 those containing the Cherra Coal, but the identity had not yet been 

 traced out. The horizontal beds mentioned by Capt. Grodwin Austen 

 as resting unconformably on the sandstones, were probably identical 

 with those mentioned by Dr. Hooker at the base of the Sikkim hills, 

 and which, as Dr. Hooker had suggested, seemed to form the littoral 

 deposits of the formation, which filled the greater part of the Grangetic 

 valley, and was known to the Geological Surveyors as the old alluvium. 

 This appeared to be continuous with the red sandy deposits which 

 covered the older rocks in Beerbhoom, and with the lateritic deposits 

 generally around the delta. Mr. Blanford concurred with Dr. Hooker 

 in regarding it as a marine formation, and indeed judging from its 

 physical position and great extent, it could hardly be otherwise, although 

 no fossils had hitherto been found in it, unless some discovered by Mr, 

 Colebrooke in the banks of the Brahmaputra at the corner of the 

 G-arrow hills should be from this formation. The great elevation of the 

 deposits on which Buxa stood, was, however, very interesting. 



