PART 1.] 
King : Geology of the Upper Godavari basin. 
13 
Additional notes on the G-eology of the Upper Godavari basin in the 
NEIGHBOURHOOD OP SiRONCHA, bij WiLLiAM KiNG, B.A., Deputy Superintend- 
ent, Geological Survey of Indict.^ 
Tlie last paper ^ wi-itten on the geology of this region by my colleague 
Mr. T. W. H. Hughes, the result, as it was, of later and more extended surveys, 
placed the relations of the Grondwana strata of this part of the Godavari and 
Pranhita area in so different a light in some respects to what I had anticipated 
in my paper® of the previous year that it became necessary to revisit the ground 
over which I had already made a cursory tour with Mr. Hughes. 
The result has been to a cei'tain extent satisfactory: a more detailed survey 
of the rocks has been effected, and some clearer insight obtained of the rela¬ 
tions of the different groups of strata; but little additional evidence has been 
secured as to the conditions of the horizon between the upper and lower divi 
sions of the Gondwana system than what we have ever had in this at first 
very promising region for the solution of that pioblem. There is no doubt, how¬ 
ever, that we have here near Sironcha two great divisions of the Gondwanas, 
namely, the Kamthis and an upper series which we have gradually, through 
Mr. Huo-hes’ researches, come to class as the Kota-Maleris, though I was 
myself inclined at first to introduce an intermediate group, the Sirofleha sand¬ 
stones, considering it representative of my Golapilli sandstones in the lower 
Godavari districts. 
The main question, and that on which nearly all the others hang, is, as to 
whether the sandstones of Sironcha town are really of the upper or lower 
Gondwanas ; but unfortunately, after all my endeavours, I have not been able to 
find fossils or sections w'hich shall absolutely settle this point, though there is 
plenty of negative evidence on both sides of the question. I should naturally 
try to employ this negative evidence in favor of my own original view of their 
relations, but the balance of evidence given by Mr. Hughes seems, on the whole, 
to be more in favor of a lower Gondwana age for these beds. 
The late Superintendent (Dr. Oldham) and Mr. W. T. Blanford are, besides 
myself, the only members of the Survey who have examined these puzzling beds, 
and Blanford had ah-eady inferred that they are Kamthis. His opinion had 
naturally great weight with me; but knowing that he had not spent much time 
over that locality, and that I had already been able to eliminate the upper 
Gondwanas from his general area of Kamthis at Ellore in the lower Godavari 
district while I had up here the remarkable section at Kaloswar, the new facies 
of the rocks themselves, and the find of plant remains at Anaram, I was led to 
surmise that there were representatives here also of the lower Godavari rocks. 
Hughes’ paper threw considerable doubt over this suggested correlation, but his 
' The descriptions in this paper can in groat part he followed with the aid of the small map 
annexed to Mr. Hughes’ paper in Vol. XI, Part 1. of the Eocords. A map of the completed 
survey will he published with Mr. King’s full description in the Jlemoirs. 
^ Records, Vol. XI, Part 1, 1878. 
^ Records, Vol, X, Part 2,1877. 
