98 Records of the Geological Survey of India. [vol. v. 
series, from the detritus of which it is probably formed; but by what process it has accumu¬ 
lated—whether it be of marine, fluviatile, or subaerial origin—is extremely difficult to 
say, the more so because, as is frequently the case in highly ferruginous rocks, no fossils are 
found in it. 
Laterito has a remarkable power of resisting disintegration, and wherever a cap of it is 
found on a hill, the lower ground around, if sufficiently flat, is covered with a thick coating 
of reconsolidated debris. The iron washed out of the laterite tends always to change any 
decomposed rock, such as trap or gneiss, beneath it into a substance so precisely resembling 
the laterite itself that there is generally an apparent passage from one rock to the other. 
VI.—Upper Tertiary and recent beds. 
Of these rocks, like the last, the classification as yet is most imperfect; indeed the fine 
drawn in some places between them and the beds described in the last section is quite arbi¬ 
trary. It is possible and even probable that some of the formations here included in each 
may ultimately have to be placed in the other series. 
Upper Tertiary beds of Kdttiawdr .—Along the coast of the Kattiawar peninsula a 
fine porous calcareous rock occurs, which is widely known as milliolite, or Porbandar stone, 
and exported under this latter name to Bombay for building purposes. It was found by 
Dr. Carter, who examined it, to consist of minute foraminifera with a few grains of quartz 
and hornblende. This rock varies much in mineral character in different places; near Gopnath 
point, which is its easternmost extension, it is much less pure than to the westward, being 
much mixed with clay. It is everywhere strongly marked by irregular oblique lamination 
or false bedding, showing deposition by currents. 
Except the foraminifera the only fossils hitherto found have been Pupa instdaris and 
somo other recent species of Land shells which Mr. Theobald obtained. The occurrence of 
these shells is the principal reason for placing the bed amongst the newer Tertiaries; although, 
as some existing forms are said to occur also in the Sivaliks, the evidence must not be con¬ 
sidered as conclusive. Of the thickness attained by the milliolite nothing trustworthy is 
recorded. It is found throughout nearly the whole south coast of Kattiawar. 
Upper Tertiaries of Kachh .—In Kachh, there is a higher sub-division of the Tertiary 
beds, chiefly developed to the westward, that is, in that part of the province in which the 
older Tertiaries are wanting, and apparently uriconformable to the latter. The following is 
the section given by Messrs. Wynne and Fedden:— 
Descending. 
Variable deposits, including concreto beds of great thickness. 
Soft sandstones, shelly, calcareous and quartzoso grits, gravels and conglomerates with 
trap pebbles and agates. 
Brown sands and sandstones with fossil wood. 
The thickness varies from 200 to 300 feet. The only distinguishable fossils are some 
large oysters, which are met with in the thick obliquely laminated concretes of the upper 
group. These oysters closely resemble the species now living on the coast of Kachh. It is 
not at all clear whether this concrete represents the milliolite of Kattiawar, or the sub-recent 
calcareous shelly rock to be hereafter described. 
Ossiferous gravels of river-valleys .—In parts of the Narbada and Godavari valleys 
gravels have been met with containing bones of extinct mammalia much more nearly 
allied to existing forms than are the species found in the Sivaliks. In the Narbada, the 
deposits of which have been far more fully explored than any others, the bones belong to 
