PART 1 .] 
Annual lleport for 1877, 
5 
seem to bo locally wanting. Altogether the study of those highly altered and 
disturbed formations is most intricate, and it is likely to bo long before a con¬ 
nected and satisfactory account of them can be given. 
Mr. Hacket confirmed in other localities Mr. Blanford’s discovery of Vindhyan 
strata to the west of the Arvali range, but in a more easterly position, resting 
quite flatly cloiso to the main series of gnoissic rocks; so that the Vindhyan for¬ 
mation must be altogether younger than the Arvali mountain-system. 
No rocks but the quartzites and other strata of the An^ali scric.s were found 
in the vicinity of the famous Sambhar salt-lake; and no observation was made 
.suggesting any connection of the salt with these rocks. 
Gondwdna formatwn .—The recognition of the Karharbari coal-measures as 
a distinguishable horizon in the lower Gondwana scries is an interesting steji in 
our knowledge of these formations. A.s immediately ovei'lying the Talchirs, 
these bods have hithci’to passed as belonging to the Barakar group, tJie lowest 
of the Damiida coal-measures. The first discovery in them of peculiarly tna,ssic 
plants not found clsowhoro, looked at from the point of view of pahuozoic affinities 
for the Damuda flora, suggested that the Karharbari beds should bo regarded 
as above the Damudas. Further collections of fossils made by Dr. Foistmantel, 
and others presented by Mr. Wliitty, the engineer in charge of the extensive mines 
from which the East Indian Railway is supplied, have not supported this notion. 
Dr. Feistmantcl points out that with those special plants arc found the few 
which most distinguish the Talchirs, and that the affinity is with this bottom 
group of the Gondwaha system, nilhcr than with the Damudas. The po.sition 
of the field, well out of the Damuda valley', and more analogous to that of the 
central fidlds, in which also tlio coal-measures have hitherto been regarded as 
Barakar, suggests that those too may be found to present those new palasonto- 
logical affinities. Dr. Feistmantcl reports from iMohpani that there is some 
confirmation of this view in the plants ho has recently found there. The very 
close stratigraphical relations of the Satpura coal-measures with the Talchirs 
in the Beti'd field was insisted upon in the last survey of that ground (Records, 
vol. VIII, p. 65, 1875). 
Of our detailed work an interesting area of the Gondwana formations was 
completed during last season by Mr. Hughes, in extension of his previous work 
in the Wardha valley, the geological linos being now carried down to the Goda¬ 
vari at and above Sironeha. An important practical result of this work is tho 
accurate demarcation of a considerable area of possibly productive coal-mcasurcs 
in the Nizam’s territories about Khairgura and Tandur, and again on tho 
Godavari at Sandrapali. In tho foi’mcr position actual coal crops were found; at 
the latter the discovery was quite unexpected, as tho ground is greatly concealed, 
but the indications arc considered sufficient. Directions arc given for tho prac¬ 
tical exploration of tho measures. 
Two localities within this area have long been familiar to students of Indian 
Geology from the fos.sils they have yielded—the liassic fish remains of Kota and 
the triassic reptilian bones of Maleri—-and on this account special interest attaeho.s 
