TART 3.] 
Blanfurd: Geuloyy of Bombay Presidency. 
83 
belonging to Continental Asia, being continuous, as was long since shown by Dr. Carter, with 
the formations found in Persia and Arabia. To the northward the Sind rocks extend to the 
foot of the Himalayas. 
To this striking change in the geology is due to no small extent the difference in the 
physical features of the countries north-west of Gujrat. Instead of plateaus covered by 
black soil, we find undulating sandy plains with scattered craggy hills; the immense alluvial 
flats to the north of Kachh and Gujrat are for the most part deserts of blown sand, and the 
fertile country consists of a belt, rapidly diminishing in breadth to the westward, along the 
borders of the sea; its verdure is due to the humidity caused by the neighbouring ocean. In 
Sind even this eeases, and the country, except on the banks of the Indus, or where reclaimed 
by irrigation, is an arid tract of gravel and sand from which arise the steep scarps of lime¬ 
stone ranges. 
In the ensuing brief description of the different groups of rocks found in the Bombay 
Presidency, it will be seen that each system is mainly developed in one or the other of these 
two great divisions. The only important exception is in the motamorphks rocks at the base 
of the whole geological series. The basaltie traps extend into Kattiawar and Kachh, but 
they occupy but a small area. The division of course is not absolute, but it is evident that, 
as has been suggested by Professor Huxley, the Indian peninsula has had, during the later 
geological epochs, a different history from the country to the north-west. In the following 
list of formations the Indian classification has been adopted, partly in order to show the 
relations of the various beds of Sind and Kachh to those of the Indian peninsula, partly 
because the usual European classification is quite inapplicable to the latter; for it is as yet 
a moot point whether the great Deccan trappean series is secondary or tertiary, and the 
European equivalents of the Vindhyan series are unknown with any accuracy. 
The following is a list of the formations found in the Bombay Presidency and its 
dependencies in descending order:— 
YI.—Later tertiary and recent 
V.—Older tertiary or nummulitic | 
fl- 
2 . 
3. 
4. 
5. 
6 . 
17. 
r 1 - 
IY.—Deccan series 
III.—Oolitic series 
II.—Vindhyan series 
i 2 ' 
13- 
1 . 
2 . 
3. 
u, 
~li 
... i. 
Black soil. 
Littoral concreto. 
Alluvium of Sind, Kachh, and Gujrat. 
Laterite of the Konkau. 
Surface gravels of Sind. 
Ossiferous gravels of river valleys. 
Upper tertiaries of Kattiawar and Kachh. 
Older tertiaries of Surat, Bharoch, Kattiawar, 
Kachh, and Sind. 
Periin Island bone beds. 
Laterite of the Deccan. 
Deccan traps. 
Intertrappean beds of Bombay. 
Ditto of Dewad, Nagpur, Narbada valley, &c. 
Cretaceous beds of Bagh. 
Jurassic rocks of Kachh: upper. 
Ditto ditto : lower. 
“ Diamond limestone” and sandstone of Bel¬ 
gium, Kaladghi, and Ratnagixi. 
I.—Submetamorphic and meta- C 1. Champanir beds. 
morphic. 12. Granite, gneiss, mica schist, &c. 
These are all which are actually known to occur in the area to which the present notice 
relates and its immediate vicinity; but in order to explain them, it will be needful occasionally 
