72 



Gn the Fossils of the Eastejii Portion 



[July 



are intimately mixed with its substance. . In the bed of a torrent be- 

 tween two of these hillocks, I met with some soft, clayey, schistose 

 fragments, and others of a siliceous character, and of a black bituminous 

 appearance in the centre, containing very perfect specimens of the 

 Paladina Deccanensis (PI. fig. 20,) and fragments of other shells to 

 bejhereafter described. Those which I examined were converted into cal- 

 cedony. A laborious research on the hill failed to discover them in situ ; 

 but about half-way up the escarpment of the principal mountain, which is 

 very steep, and composed of concentric nodular basalt, imbedded in a 

 soft greenish wacke, a narrow band of a singular quartz rock projected 

 about two feet from the surface. It was remarkably scabrous, of various 

 shades of white and red, and had cavities on its surface covered with 

 fine silk}'- crystals. It had every appearance of having been forced into 

 its present situation, when the basalt covered and partially melted the 

 bed to which it belonged. Many fragments of this rock were found 

 below with the shells ; and it was again met with, together with the 

 same and other fossils imbedded in basalt, near Hutnoor. The specific 

 gravity of this rock is 2-473, and some of the specimens effervesced 

 feebly in acids, a portion of lime being dissolved ; circumstances in which 

 it corresponds with a similar formation found by Voysey, associated with 

 shells, probably of the same kind, at Medcondah (south of the Godavery), 

 an insulated basaltic hill resting on granite, to which I shall have occa- 

 sion again to refer. The highest summit of the hills, above the locality 

 of the fossils, is conical, but it is capped by a perfectly horizontal strati- 

 fied rock, the nature of which I could not determine. It is most pro- 

 bably tabular basalt, although that rock is seldom found in similar 

 situations. 



Such are the appearances presented on ascending the difficult pass 

 leading up the steep escarpment of the Sichel hills, which form the 

 southern boundary of the eastern portion of the great trap formation of 

 Central India. The hills extend from the junction of the Wurdah 

 and Godavery rivers (the basins of which they separate), till they are 

 lost in the gradual rise of the country to the west, near Lonar (lat. 20°, 

 long. 76°, 30')} in the province of Aurungabad. Their direction is W. 

 N. W., and, as far as can at present be inferred, they seem to be con- 

 tinuous to the east with numerous ranges of basaltic, sandstone, and 

 granitic hills, extending to the Eastern Ghats, at the lower parts of the 

 course of the Godavery. The extreme breadth of the range, from the 

 foot of the Nirmul pass to the town of Yedlabad, (nearly on a level with 

 the plain country of Berar,) is about 40 miles ; but several smaller hilly 

 having for the greater part the same direction, are intimately connected 



