1834.] 



Geology of the South of India, 



330 



Presidency. It does not require any great knowledge of geology to 

 collect facts which may be of great use ; as I experienced during May 

 last year when, in attending to the nature of the soils and of the rocks 

 from the decomposition of which they were formed, with a view to 

 trace their important influence in the production and on the charac- 

 ter of disease, I discovered perhaps the richest collection of fossils 

 which has yet been found in India. This is my encouragement to 

 expect, from the many well qualified persons who have abundant op- 

 portunities of examining the many interesting districts under this Pre- 

 sidency, communications which may be of important use to science 

 and have most beneficial effects on more directly useful pursuits ; I 

 therefore beg you will republish from the Asiatic researches, vol. 18 

 and Gleanings vol. Ist, the following paper of Dr. Voysey's on the 

 fossils of the Gawilgerh range, which forms the northern boundary 

 of the province which should fall to the lot of the Madras enquirers, 

 and forms an important part of that vast extent of igneous rocks of 

 ■which the President of the Geological Society in the last anniversa- 

 ry address to that body observed, that they extend over 200,000 

 square miles, " so that the mind is almost lost in the contemplation 



of their grandeur : unfortunately the relative age of these erupti- 

 " ons must remain for the present undetermined, no ve.^tiges of se- 



condary or tertiary formations having been detected within the re- 



gion described." 



On some petrified Shells, found in the Gawilgerh range of 

 Hills t in Aprily 1823. 



By the late H. W, Voysey, Esq. 

 Assistant Surgeon His Majesty's 67th Foot. 



This remarkable range of hills is called, by Arrowsmith,inhis last 

 map, the Bindeh, or Bindachull (Vindhya or Vindhydchala) hills. 

 The same name is, however, given to a lofty range of hills on the left 

 bank of the Godaveri, as it passes through Gondwana, and also to 

 those near Gualior. I shall, therefore, distinguish them by the 

 name of the Gawilgerh range, particularly as, after repeated enqui- 

 ries, I have never been able to discover that they were so designated 

 either by the inhabitants of those hills or of the neighbouring plains. 

 They take their rise at the confluence of the Puma and Tapt'i rivers, 

 and running nearly E. and by N. terminate at a short distance be- 

 yond the sources of the Tapti and Wurda. To the southward, they 

 are bounded by the valley of Berar^ and to the north, by the course 



