184O0 



of the Great Basaliic District of India. 



93 



common in the granitic districts, and the conclusion of the eruptions by 

 which the fossils were entombed ; but at present there is no proof of 

 such having been the case ; and all observers have considered the erup- 

 tions to have been contemporaneous ; an opinion, to a certain extent, 

 confirmed by the occurrence of the same fossils in very distant locali- 

 ties. 



The sandstone and argillaceous limestone I have myself traced, from 

 the neighbourhood of Nagpoor nearly to the junction of the Wurdah 

 with the Godavery, bearing the same characters as in the vicinity of the 

 fossil beds ; and I have collected specimens of the same rocks at vari- 

 ous places between this and Badra 'helium and the diamond mines in 

 the neighbourhood of the Kistnah. This tract, for 250 miles, is nearly 

 an uninterrupted forest, and presents many difficulties in the investiga- 

 tion of its geological structure. Trap rocks and basaltic soil occur in 

 many parts of the course of the Godavery, and granite of the usual chrir- 

 acter is occasionally met with. Dr. Voysey, who investigated great 

 part of it with his usual accuracy, describes the sandstone as constituting 

 a range of mountains GO miles in extent, to the north-west of Badra- 

 chellum ; and the surface rock 20 miles south of EUore (near the allu- 

 vial plains of the Kistnah and the rliamond mines), also at Mungapett on 

 the Godavery, where I found silicified wood resembling that of Pondi- 

 cherry*. Fossil wood was also seen by Mr. Geddes strewed over the 

 country N.W. of this point, towards the junction with the Wurdah. 

 Where the sandstone of the Godavery meets the granite to the west, Dr. 

 Voysey states that it can hardly be recognised as the same rock, con- 

 sisting of a conglomerate containing quartz, felspar, and rounded pieces 

 of granite resembling that of the eastern ghats. The argillaceous lime- 

 stone occurs in the same district, and is more widely distributed than 

 Dr. Voysey supposed. He found it at an elevation of 2600 feet above 

 the sea, and exhibiting marks of great disturbance, dipping to the S.E., 

 and at the summits of the hills intermixed with quartz rockf. Dr. Voy- 

 sey considers these formations at the lower part of the Godavery, to be 

 the same as those of the Kistnah and Pennar ; and in this opinion I fully 

 coincide, although I have found the continuity of the sandstone and 



• Journal of the Asiatic Society, vol. ii., p. 402. The tenor of Dr. Voysey's ohser- 

 vations in this-i)1ace seem to show that he considered the" clay slate," in which he 

 included the sandstone, to belong' to the same formation as the limestone ; a conclus^oa 

 I had formed before meeting with his paper, and which has not been expressly stated in 

 any of his writings yet given to the public. 



t The structure of the wood ia beautifully preserved : it is coniferous. June 24, 1839, 



