82 



On the Fossils of the Eastern Portion 



[July 



Many Physse, Paludinee, and a few Liranese of the same species as those 

 ah-eady noticed, are found in this indurated clay or imperfect chert. 

 Some of them are entirely converted into calcedony ; others have the 

 lime replaced by quartz, which is finely crystallized and covers ihe surface 

 of the convolutions ; or the columella only is preserved, passing across 

 an empty cast of the shell. In some eases, however, the structure of the 

 fossil is unaltered, and it effervesces in acids. Flinty slate without or- 

 ganic remains occurs in the neighbourhood of those amorphous masses, 

 and many fragments of the same kind containing large compressed 

 bivalves are scattered about. In one block of this kind, portions of palm 

 wood mineralized by black flint, intersected by fine veins of a light blue 

 opal, (of the same kind as occurs in some of the specimens of fossil wood 

 from Antigua, lately presented to the Society by Mr. Stokes,) was 

 found associated with compressed very thick bivalve shells, probably re- 

 ferable to the game species as those of Munnoor. 



Every appearance presented by these rocks indicates the action of the 

 semifluid basalt on the beds of mud and sand, probably derived from the 

 neighbouring sandstones and schists, in which the shells previously ex- 

 isted. 



At Hingan-ghat*, a few miles further to the north, considerable frag- 

 ments of silicified palms and other plants were found in a black chert 

 lying on the basalt, and similar masses, but without fossils, were imbedded 

 in it, I met with no organic remains to the north of this town, the whole 

 country as far as the city of Nagpoor being covered with a rich black 

 soil, from which insulated basaltic hills with flattened summits rise 

 abruptly. 



Of these hills the most remarkable is that of Seetabuldee, which is 

 based on decomposing gneiss and mica slate. To Dr. Voysey's descrip- 



* In examining with the microscope sections of some of the silicified wood from the 

 district described, a sppcimen from the chert of Hingan-g])jit appeared to me to be bone, 

 and Mr. Owen, who has had the kindness to examine it, has ascertained it to belong to a 

 mammiferous animal. He has favoured me with the following note on this important 

 fossil : 



" A section of this fossil was prepared suffix iently thin to allow of its being examin- 

 ed by transmitted liijht under a high maLniifvin? poM er, when it was found to possess 

 the structure characteristic of bone. Sections of ' Huversian canals,' with their concen- 

 tric lines, were everj where present, interspersed with numerous Purkingian cells or 

 corpuscles : the size and disposition of thpse characteristic parts of the osseous strucT- 

 ture agreed with those of the bones of the Mammalia. It was highly satisfactory to find 

 the microscopic test as available in demonstrating the presence of bone, when ordinary 

 characters and the unassisted eye would have left the matter doubtful, as it is in reference 

 to the determination of the teeth."— July, 1839, 



