PART 2.] 
King : Bocks of the Lower Godavari. 
61 
Looking at the physical aspect of the country, and seeing that the general north¬ 
west—south-east strike of the Kamthi strata is still maintained among these doubtful 
sandstones up to and beyond the Godavari, while the dip is also to the eastward, the 
natural conclusion is that these are lower beds than those of Pakhal and the Godavari 
District, or that they are of an older group, say the Barakars. They certainly did not 
strike me as having a Barakar look, though there are occasionally near the bottom of the 
series thick beds of coarse, soft, light-colored sandstones which might be of this group; 
but their apparent position with regard to the strata of the Sullavey hills and their lying 
on the Talchir patch at that village are worthy of consideration on this view of their 
possible age. Still, until the country is more closely examined, the preferable conclusion is 
that they are really part of the Kamthi series and inferior to the strata of Lingagoodium, &c. 
It must, however, be mentioned that when Mr. Hughes joined me, he had already 
been working for some time at these beds between the Main air and Godavari rivers, west of 
Sironcha, and was rather under the impression that they belonged to a later series than 
the Kamthis. If this be the case, they must then have been deposited round the Sullavey 
hills over the base of the Kamthis and on to the outlier of Takhirs. To distinguish them 
as a group, we adopted the name Tarcherla sandstones, from a village on the Malnair river. 
At the junction of the Pranhita with the Godavari, just north ot the village of 
Kaleswarum, these Tarcherla beds are overlaid by further strata having very much the same 
dip. though they differ somewhat in their constitution. There is, however, a local uncon¬ 
formity on the Kaleswarum bank, which, though only small, was sufficient to draw our 
attention to the possibility of its being more general among the rocks, and that we were 
here at the bottom beds of a newer series. A bed of fine-grained sandstone with a rather 
undulating dip to north-north-east at about 5° overlies the partings between five other beds 
of coarse pebbly sandstone which have a north-east dip of about 10°. This exposure 
being only about 20 feet in length, and in sandstones which are not constant in the 
thickness of their strata, it is possible that the unconformity may only be local and a 
case of oblique bedding, though from the fact of our almost immediately coming on 
lhtjmehal strata above, it is most likely a true break. 
At any rate, after crossing the river, and on the right hank of the Pranhita opposite 
Sironcha, we came on sandstones which differ in many points from those of the country to 
the south and north-west. They are micaceous, thick and thin-bedded, harsh, even-textured 
grey and brown sandstones, but they at the same time contain fragments of buff and 
pink shales. These are succeeded, as the short section opposite Sironcha is followed out, 
by thinner and conglomeratic beds, and these again by some of the thick beds with contained 
lumps of shale. Above these again is a set of finer grained huff, grey, purple and 
yellow soft laminated sandstones, rather shaly and flaggy, containing fragmentary plant 
remains said to he of a Bajmehal type. All the beds are micaceous, and in this differ 
from the Kamthis. The river section is then covered up by alluvium, and nothing more is 
seen until a couple of miles south of Anarum, where there is a low rise of friable pebbly 
sandstones having a flat and undulating lie, and at the village, associated with these 
sandstones, are grey and purple shaly hands containing plant remains, the only recognizable 
form being a Palissya. 
Irrespective of the finding of these fossils, we were quite satisfied of the series (with the 
exception of the beds containing fragments of shales) being different in character and 
appearance from the Tarcherla sandstones. At the same time, they do not resemble the 
Upper Gondwanas of the Godavari District, except in the presence of mica, which.mineral 
is frequent in the Golapilly group of sandstones. 
