PART 3 .] 
Blanford : Geuluyy of Bombay 1 J residency, 
89 
fresh-water shells, reptilian bones (?) and wood. But although it is evidently of different origin 
from the Bagh group, its similarity in mineral character to the uppermost bed of the latter 
is most striking, and there is also great resemblance ill the conformity of both Lameta and 
Bagh beds to the overlying trap, although this character is less striking in the Bagh beds in 
consequence of local unconformity. 
Numerous small patches of infra-trappean rooks occur along the southern boundary of 
the Deccan trap in Belgaon and Kaladghi districts. They rest either on the Vindhyan or the 
g-neissic rocks, and arc invariably of small thickness, rarely exceeding 6 or 8 feet, and generally 
of even much less thickness. The hods consist generally of soft sandstones or marly sand 
with numerous quartzite and a few gneissic pebbles. The top of the beds just below the 
trap is most frequently stained of a rich red from the presence of red bole. In the only 
case, near Ivaladghi, in which fossils were found in these infra-trappean beds, they were 
of fresh water types— Physa, Lymnea, and Unio. It is still uncertain whether these are 
true representatives of the Lameta group, or only local overlaps of the inter-trappeans. 
The Bagh beds consist of limestone or calcareous shales and sandstone, the former being 
almost always above the latter. The ‘ coralline limestone,’ which first attracted attention to 
them from the blocks in the ruined buildings of Mandii near Mohu (Mhow), is a red 
or yellow rock mainly composed of fragments of marine shells and bryozoa. The source of 
the blocks at Mandu was long unknown, but was in 1856 traced by Colonel (then Captain) 
Iveatingc to Cherakhan, about twenty-five miles east of Bagh. This peculiar rock forms the 
highest bed of the group over a small area east of Bagh, but it is not seen near that town, and 
is only very imperfectly represented to the westward. 
At Bagh itself, 20 or 30 feet of nodular limestone rests on 80 or 100 feet of sandstone, 
which is in places conglomeratic and sometimes argillaceous or shaly. To the west in 
Alirajpur and Chota. Udcpiir, the mass of the cretaceous rocks consists of coarse sandstones 
and conglomerates, capped by gritty limestone or calcareous shales. In the Dcva valley' near 
Dumkhal in the northern part of the Bajpipla hills, a section of 500 feet of these 
calcareous shales is seen resting upon an even greater thickness of sandstones, but to the 
north the group becomes of much smaller dimensions ; like the Lametas, the uppermost beds 
frequently abound in chert. 
The traps in general rest conformably upon the Bagh beds, but there is much local 
unconformity, showing that the latter had in places undergone considerable denudation 
before they were covered by the volcanic rocks. From the nature of this denudation there 
can be but little doubt that it was subaerial, and that the marine beds of Bagh had been 
raised above the sea and subjected to the action of rain and streams before their surface was 
encased in the overflowing trap. 
The fossils found near Bagh arc unmistakeably cretaceous; and Dr. Martin Duncan 
has shown that the Echinoderms found at Cherakhan are mostly identical with species found 
in the Upper Greensand (Cenomauien) of Europe. A few specimens are met with farther 
west, hut less abundantly. The most common to the west are species of Oxtrea, but teeth of 
Sharks, Pecten 4 -costatus, and Hcmiaster, also occur occasionally. 
In the lower Narbada valley the cretaceous beds fringe the trap, and are occasionally 
exposed within the area of the volcanic rocks. The principal inliers to the westwards in 
the Eewa Kanta are near the town of Kawat, and a large one exists in the Deva valley in 
Rajpipla south ol( the Narbada; whilst on the edge of the traps, a tract covered by these beds, 
fourteen miles long from north to south by ten miles broad, is met with a low miles south¬ 
east of Baroda near the villages of Wasna, Talakwara, and Gandeshwar. 
Stratified traps. —These rocks have engaged tlio attention of nearly all the geologists 
who have written upon Western India. Their thickness, peculiar appearance, and extent 
render them the most conspicuous geological feature of the country. 
