162 



Notices of Booha : 



*' In the sanJslone upon v.bich the coal and limestone immedi- 

 ately rest at Chei ra, ri bed of boring shells occur composing a consi- 

 derable portion of the rock in certain places. The shells were of the 

 size and form of the Teredo navalis, but they are mineralized so un- 

 favorably as to render it doubtful to what genus they really belonged.* 

 It is here worthy of remark that the old red sandstone at the base 

 of the coal measures at Caithness, and other parts of Britain contains 

 fishes, none of which appear in the superincumbent beds, while 

 at Cherra we have a sandstone bearing the character of the old 

 red, and like it reposing on igneous rocks, and supporting beds of 

 limestone and coal, but instead of fishes abounding in the peculiar 

 boring shells just mentioned, not one of which could be found in the 

 super-imposed rock, nor could one of the numerous shells of the latter 

 be found in the subjacent rock, thus indicating both in Europe and 

 India, that a sufficient interval of time had elapsed between the 

 period at which the formation of the conglomerates was finished, and 

 that at which the production of the limestone commenced, to allow of 

 the disappearance from the seas of one class of animals, and the intro- 

 duction of another. The surface of this great formation for two-thirds 

 of the entire height of the Kasya mountains in this situation, is covered 

 with a stratum of marine shells which lie immediately under the soil, 

 and in places these remains are accumulated in extensive deposits of 

 the shingle of an ancient coi st. 



" On the summits which intervene between the coal at Cherra, and 

 that of Serrareem above adverted to, the sandstone is chiefly of a 

 brick red colour, variegated in places with white. Imbedded in 



" * In Dr. Buckland's paper on the fossils procured in Avaby Mr. Crawford, Geol. Tran. 

 2d series vol. 2, p. 387, teredines are mentioned as having been found in blocks of wood 

 in that kingdom and of the same species as those found in London clay. Mr. Wise of 

 Dacca has recently found fossil trees in Camilla, that remarkable tract of table-land refer* 

 red to in the first paragraph of the Author's report on the physical condition of the Assam 

 Tea Plant. (Transactions of the Agricultural Society of India, vol. 4, p. 1.) Two speci- 

 mens of these trees have been brought to Calcutta by H. M. Low, Esq., one apparently 

 calcareous, the other is siliceous, yet both were found together in the same place, so tiiat 

 it is to be supposed they were drifted from distinct situations. One of these fossils had 

 been eaten by Termes and the other perforated by a kind of Teredo, the holes of M-hich 

 agree in every respect with those formed in recent trees in the Sunderbunds by the Teredo 

 navalis ; the trees were dicotyledinous. If they were actually found on the table-land 

 alluded to, the fact will lead to some highly interesting inferences, but whether or not 

 they serve to form an interesting local link between the fossils of the Cherra Ponji sand- 

 stone, and the living Teredo in the Bay of Bengal. Mr. Low has kindly undertaken to 

 procure more information from Mr. Wise regarding the history of the fossil woods in 

 question, which are in the meantime transferred to my friend Dr. Cantor," 



