162 
Records of the Geological Survey of India. 
[voL. xir. 
Corals. —Considerable numbers of a very delicate little cup coral ((7. G. 
JJfos. 1—65) were found in white clays half a mile east of the Oudicad-Cullpady 
road, and rather nearer to the latter place. They appeared confined to a very 
small area, and were not mot with elsewhere. 
Plants. —Plant-remains, fossil-wood excepted, are very rare in the Trichinopoly 
cretaceous beds, but a few obscure specimens were obtained, e. g .— 
An impression of a longitudinally ribbed stalkfound at Seraganur (S. No. 15). 
A minute piece of a cycadeous (?) leaf in an indurated clay nodule from the 
Utatiir beds north of Cudicad (C. No. 3), 
Minute fragments, apparently of cycadeous leaves, are traceable in some parts 
of small clayey nodides from the Utatur beds (Nos. 67—720). 
Locality No. 2.—The collection of fossils obtained from this patch of coral reef 
limestone is a very important addition to the fauna of this rather obscure form¬ 
ation, which yielded but little, if I mistake not, to earlier searches. My success 
in procuring specimens was duo to the limestone having been quarried to some 
extent quite recently. All the specimens found I obtained from the quarry chips, 
with only one or two exceptions. 
Locality No. 3.-—-This locality, which does not appear to have been known to 
Mr. Blanford as a rich hunting ground, shows three sets of fossiliferous beds, 
the lowest being coarse calcareous gritty beds with a few fossils and many washed- 
up pebbles of the coral reef limestone, also some masses almost deserving the 
name of boulders of the same rock. On these rests the “ Sponge bod,” an 
argillo-calcareous sandstone. On this again lies a clay bed with large indurated 
nodules, containing occasional Ammonites and Nautili with a few other shells. 
These are easily distinguishable by their light color, pale yellow or buff, while 
the “ Sponge bed ” fossils and those from the lower beds are mostly of a dis¬ 
tinctly brovTi color. 
The fossils from the “ Sponge bed ” were nearly all found within a veiy 
small space of ground, on the very basset edge of the beds, or the upper two or 
three feet of the giltty talus. The fossils met with, beside the sponges, rhyn- 
cholites, echinodenns and encxunoid joints already mentioned, wereCidaris spines, 
Belemnites, small Corals, Bryozoa, Serpulfe in great vai’iety and numbers, large 
numbers of Tuhulostemn callosum, numerous Gryphaxa and Oysters, and lastly, a 
number of small shells,' both Gasteropoda and Pelecypoda, not forgetting a few 
small Ammonites. I do not recollect any other fossil locality in which I obtained 
BO rich a collection, in an equally small space, reckoning the richness by the 
number of species. 
Jjocality “ 0.” —Mr. Blanford, in his Memoir on the cretaceous rocks, speaks of 
the small clay nodules near Utatiir as hardly over containing any fossils. This 
statement is, I think, rather too strong, and calculated to deter future collectora 
from searching one source of valuable fossils. My own cxjxcrience is, that they 
are not common in the small nodules, but still common enough to encourage 
search. I got several (eleven I think) in a morning’s general search, without 
devoting more than half an hour specially to breaking nodules. Two of the 
eleven are certainly valuable specimens, the rhyncholite-liko bodies referred to 
above (Nos. 26 and 27). 
