1840.] 



of the Great Basaltic District of India, 



73 



with tbem to the north, as far as the Wurdah river, which Ims an eleva- 

 tion of little more than 600 feet above the sea. The Sichel hills are 

 arranged in terraces, with steep sides having projecting spurs, and their 

 summits rise occasionally into conical elevations with rounded or flat 

 tops. 'I'hey inclose narrow valleys abounding in streams, or support 

 table-lands covered with black soil strewed with trap boulders, and hav- 

 ing water everywhere near the surface. A thick wood and grass jungle, 

 composed of very different plants from those common on the , granite 

 hills, cover the whole tract, with the exception of the flat summits and 

 some of the terraces, and render it unhealthy for the greater part of the 

 year. The basalt of which they are composed, is generally globular, the 

 spheroids being sometimes of great size ; but in many of the water- 

 courses^ even of the elevated table-lands, it has a stratified appearance. 

 Small basaltic columns are also met with on the crests of some of the 

 spurs and higher ridges ; and where they occur, no fossils and few mine- 

 rals are found. Granite not only forms the base of tlie hills at Nirmul 

 to the south, and Yedlabad to the north, but part of the mountains 

 themselves, the basalt being seen to rest on decomposing granite about 

 the centre of the range, in a deep ravine, through which the Koorm river 

 passes ; it a' so again appears high in the table-land to the north of that 

 river, and in one of the terraces of the northern descent, where the most 

 extensive fossil beds were found. Further detail is unnecessary, as Dr. 

 Voysey's admirable description of the Gawilghur mountains, forming the 

 northern boundary of the great and fertile valley of Berar, as these hills 

 do its southern limits, applies equally well to both ranges*. 



The fossils were first discovered in situ, near Munoor, in the basaltic 

 table- land north of the Koorm river ; and were subsequently found ia 

 the descent of the hills towards Hutnoor, and in different parts of the 

 Mucklegundy pass, leading into the Berar valley. They consist 

 of numerous gyrogonites ; two species of Cypris ; two, or perhaps 

 three, species of Unio ; and many individuals referable to the genera 

 Paludina, Physa, and Limnea (see PI. ). The rock in which they occur, 

 varies in different places. Some of the finest specimens were procured 

 from a red chert with scabrous furface, having silicified shells distri- 

 buted throughout its subs' ance, or projecting from its surface. The 

 chert is deeply imbedded in the nodular basalt, from which it projects 

 in some places several feet. The finest specimens of Unio occur in 

 a beautiful gray chert, imbedded in the basalt, or resting imme- 

 diately on it, the under surface being plain and smooth, while the 



Asiatic Researches, vol. xviii. 



