APRIL — sept. 1858.] Proceedings. 155 

 gesting that a Committee should be appointed to consider the ge- 

 neral subject. 



Resolved, that the Honorable Mr. Elliot and Messrs. Bayley and 

 Norman do form a Committee to report on a uniform system of 

 rendering into Roman characters the Hindostanee, Tamil and Te- 

 loogoo vernaculars. 



Read a letter from Mr. H. F. Blanford submitted through Mr. 

 Brooke Cunliffe, forwarding a memorandum on the geological age 

 of the sandstones containing fossil wood at Trivikeri near Pondi- 

 cherry. 



The country around Trivikeri consists of a coarse sandstone 

 containing the well known remains of large trunks of fossil trees, 

 to the westward of which the primitive gneiss formation of the 

 Peninsula appears, and to the east extensive cretaceous beds with 

 numerous remains of ammonites and other chambered shells which 

 stretch for some distance towards the sea, after which the sand- 

 stone again appears and continues until covered by the alluvial 

 formation of the valley of the Tembakam-nala which reaches to 

 the sea-shore at Pondicherry. 



It has hitherto been supposed that the cretaceous beds rested 

 upon the sandstone formation, and where the latter was wanting 

 directly on the gneiss, and this opinion has been maintained by 

 Mr. Heslop in the geological transactions, and by Mr. A. Schla- 

 gentweit in one of his memoirs on the Magnetic Survey. Mr. 

 Blanford, however, in examining some very well denned sections 

 of the sandstone rocks in deep gullies cut by the supplying streams 

 of the Usatari tank four miles to the east of Pondicherry, observed 

 clear indications of cretaceous fossils underlying the sandstone, 

 and being thus led to prosecute his researches into the subject 

 perceived that the Usatari sandstone beds, instead of being under 

 the cretaceous rocks, rest very unconformably upon them. Guid- 

 ed by the light thrown on the investigation of this fact, he insti- 

 tuted a careful comparison between the formations at Trivikeri 

 and those at Usatari ; and has come to the conclusion, on grounds 

 which appear incontrovertible, that the Trivikeri sandstones are 

 identical with those at Usatari, therefore newer than the cretace- 

 ous beds and unconformable to them. 



