252 
Records of the Geological Survey of India. [vol. xi. 
are by no means so monotonous in composition or colour, as compared to tie 
cretaceous rocks, as Mr. Blanford’s description would lead one to believe.^ 
Tbe position occupied by tbo several patches of Rajmalial beds now de.scribed 
is quite analogous to that of the various other patches occupied by them along 
the coast as far north as the neighbourhood of Ellore in the Godavari district. 
There is also very strong resemblance in the petrological character of these beds 
with many of those occun-ing in the Chinglcput, Nellore, and Kistna di.striets, 
as will be jiointed out further on. Many beds in those districts arc unquestion¬ 
ably of marine origin, as proved by the fossils they enclose; and such beds enclose 
also numerous plant remains in no wise different in kind, or in state of preserva¬ 
tion, from those not associated with marine remains. This throws a doubt on 
the assumjition, that all the Rajmahal beds in Trichinopoly district are of fi’esh- 
water origin. Except the negative evidence from the absence of marine fossils 
from such bods, there is no ground for supposing such beds to be of fresh-water 
origin; and this latter supposition requires a total rearrangement of the geogra¬ 
phical conditions which may, from recent analogy, bo supposed to have existed 
at that period. When Mr. Blanford wrote his Memoir, it is true none of those 
other Rajmahal formations were known or suspected to be of marine origin; his 
deduction therefore of their fresh-water origin was natural. 
The discovery of a marine fauna in the southern representatives of the 
Upper Gondwana series was first made by myself when surveying the Sri- 
pormatur area west of Madras in 1863. From the nature of the plants there 
discov'erod in the same beds of (white or grey) shales ivith the marine remains, 
no doubt could remain of their formation being truly of Rajmahal ago. Since 
then still more strikingly marine beds have been discovered containing Rajmahal 
plants, e. g., the Ragavapuram shales in the Godavari district by Mr. King, 
Ueimty Superintendent, Geological Survey of India (in 1874) ; also the Veml- 
raram shales in Nellore district (by myself in 1875) ; and the BudWada shalcy 
calcareous grits also in Nellore district (found by mo in 1876). The northerly 
extensions of the two latter formations into the Kistna (Guntoor) district are 
also of marine origin, and so, too, are the plant-bearing bods further south in the 
Nellore district at and ai-ound Kandullur. 
The nature of the small bivalves found in the “ disputed beds ” at Maravatur 
has not yet been determined critically; but they look to me, if I may trust my 
memory to that extent, very much like some minute shells that I found in some i 
of the plant beds north and south of Kandallur, associated with other unques¬ 
tionably marine shells. 
In his interesting paper “ On the Age and Correlation of the Plant-bearing 
Series of India,” read by JVIr. H. P. Blanford before the Geological Society (of 
London),’ he speaks of “ bod.s with marine fossils intercalated with them ” (the 
plant beds) ; this is not con-ect, for there is no separation of the beds. Where the 
marine fossils occur, plant remains occur also, and often in the same hand .speci¬ 
men ; and these plant remains are precisely in the .same condition, and fossilised 
' Memoirs, G. S. I., vol. iv, p. 42. 
’ Quar. Journ, Geol. Soc., vol. XXXI, p. 519, 1875. 
