1838.] 



Fossil Remains in the NizawHs territonj. 



477 



IX. — Literary and Scientific Intelligence. 



We are indebted to Captain 0. W. Gray, at present stationed at 

 Hingolee, for information of an interesting discovery of fossil remains 

 near tiiat place. The following account by an officer, whose name we 

 are not at present at liberty to mention, will convey information re- 

 garding the locality and mode of discovery. 



" During the rainy season of the year 1837, a river or large nullah 

 which runs by the vilUige of Wnkoory, 22 miles 8. E. from the can- 

 tonment of Hingolee, in the territory of H. H. the Soubah of the 

 Dec-kan, rose to an unprecedented height ; the stream left its own bed, 

 and in falling into the Peam* Gunga river, about a mile from Wakoory, 

 washed aw ay a consid erable quantity of the black alluvial soil from 

 the ri^ht bank, thus exposing the substratum of gravelly calcarious 

 concrete. A con sideijible quantity of this lower stratum was also 

 cut away, by the force of the water in its fall of about forty feet into 

 the Peam Guiiga. 



During the process the tusks and bones of a large animal were wash- 

 ed b.-^re, at a depth of from forty to fifty feet, imbedded in gravel ce- 

 mented by carl onale of lime. The village cow-herds and others, it is 

 said, bn ke ihe hones and otherwihe destroyed the skeleton before it 

 was known at Hingolee, that such discovery had taken place. 



When known, steps u ere taken to prevent further destruction, and 

 all that appeared liave been secured ; viz., three pieces of the tusks 

 (there were two tusks distinct, in situ, in the calcarious concrete, forty 

 feet below the surface) and one long piece of bone, all the other large 

 bones had disappeared. A mass about five feet long and two feet 

 broad of jumbled bones and concrete remained. 



The officers who visited the spot consider that other fossil remains 

 may be looked for, and that those of smaller animals are very abun- 

 dant. They are not silicified ; they have been imbedded in gravel and 

 calcarious breccia — tjie calcarious concrete is very thick, mixed 

 with rolled pebbles and stones. It is not a parLal deposit from 

 fissures, but underlies the whole of the valley of the Peam Gunga, 

 about Wakoory ; and there is reason to suppose the same stratum is 



* Theorthogvaphyofthis word seems very unsettled, like that of most other names of 

 places in India. It is variously spelt by our Hingolee correspondents, and published 

 maps, Beam, Peam, Fyne and Pain.— JEiDitob., 



