GEOLOGY OF INDIA. Ig 



Dr. VoYSEY distinguished a pJiytolitkus, a calamite, a lycopodkim, and one 

 specimen of a gigantic species of patella. The shale passes into slate-clay, 

 above which succeeds a gritty, micaceous, broivnish-grey, sand-stone, here 

 and there becoming indurated and slaty — this forms the surface rock all 

 over the coal district, rising into low round - topt hills and undulated 

 grounds. In the coal pits (three in number,) which have only yet been 

 sunk to a depth of about ninety feet, seven seams of coal have been met 

 with, one of which exceeds nine feet in thickness : the quality of the coal 

 (which is now consumed largely in and about Calcutta,) somewhat resem- 

 bles the Sunderland coal, but leaves a larger propprtion of cinders and 

 ashes. 



Proceeding northward and westward, from Bancora, and the Da- 

 moda river, the road to Benares passes over granitic rocks, of which the 

 ranges of hills on the left, and the whole country, as far as the Sone and 

 round by SJiirghati and Gay a, is probably composed. On approaching the 

 Sone river, and crossing the hills behind Sasseram, sand-stone begins to 

 appear, and continues to be the surface rock, with probably only one con- 

 siderable interval, all the way to Agra, forming, as before noticed, the 

 southern barrier of the valley of the Ganges and Jumna ; that interval oc- 

 curs in the low lands of Bundelkhand, where the remarkable isolated hills, 

 forming ridges, running S. W. and N. E. are all granitic, the high lands 

 being covered with sand-stone. This brings us back to the rocky plains of 

 Upper Hindustan, and to the last of the three principal mountain rafnges 

 first alluded to. The Vindhya Zone, crossing the Continent, from east to 

 west, may be said to unite the northern extremities of the two great ranges 

 already described, which terminate nearly in the same parallel of latitude, 

 forming, as it were, the base of the triangle that elevates the table land 

 of the peninsula. This great chain, yielding little in classical character 

 to the Himalaya, intersects the heart of the country, and is distinctly 



E traceable, 



