l~U Records of the Geological Survey of India. [vol. v. 
There though locally infra-trappean, these beds would, of course, belong to the inter-trappean 
horizon. In his sketch of the Geology of the Bombay Presidency (Records, Geological 
Survey, Yol. V, page 93), Mr. Blanford notices some cases of this kind, as observed by Mr. 
Poote in the Kaladgi and Belgaon districts. The fact that in these exceptional positions 
the deposits contain the usual fossils of the inter-trappean beds only brings into greater 
contrast the prevailing absence of such remains in the much more largely developed deposits 
of the Larneta group ; and also the occurrence of these overlaps in the comparatively 
restricted inter-trappean deposits gives some warrant to the demand for their production in 
the case of the widely extended Lametas before these can be accepted as cotemporaneous 
with the trap. 
August 1872. 
A BRIEF NOTICE OF SOME RECENTLY DISCOVERED PETROLEUM LOCALITIES IN PeGU, 
by W. Theobald, Geological Survey of India. 
In the third number of the Records of the Geological Survey for 1870, a brief notice 
is given by me of the occurrence in Pegu of petroleum at the then newly discovered locality 
of Pudouk-ben near Thaiet-mio. Since that date two other localities have been the scene 
of a not unsuccessful search for petroleum, the main facts connected with which I will here 
review. 
The first locality visited by me is situated eleven and a half miles west of Prome 
Pagoda m a small stream falling into the Boogoo river, and three miles above the village 
of Toung-bo-ji, on the same small stream, which has no name applied to it on the published 
maps, but is locally known as the Mahu-choung* This spot lies within the area of the 
unaltered nummulitie rocks, and is situated in a belt of undulating jungly ground, charac¬ 
terised by a general absence of water, and wherein, consequently, no villages exist, the scarcity 
of water appearing to depend on the impermeable character of the clays, which here mainly 
form the surface of the country. No good section of the beds is seen between Prome and 
the Mahu-choung, and the passage from the impermeable clays of the newer tertiaries to the 
similar beds of the nummulitie group is obscure and unindicated on the jungle clad surface 
of the ground by any obvious physical sign. The cause of this is the absence here of the 
nummulitie limestone, the highest member of the group, and, where present, an excellent 
horizon for the newer group; but this rock has here died out, and in default of good sections, 
the boundary of the two groups is thereby rendered indistinct. 
The petroleum was first detected by some squatting families of Cutch-boilers, who settle 
in this arid tract as long as surface water is procurable in the small pools and watercourses 
in it, and these men remarked that in some spots where the water was very low and on the 
point of drying up, it possessed a flavor of petroleum. The presence of petroleum was, 
am informed, noticed as a film on the water, where a dam had been thrown across the 
Mahu-choung near the village of Toung-bo-ji, below the spot where petroleum has since been 
obtained. 
An enterprising and intelligent Chinaman possessed of a little capital determined to 
test the value of these surface indications, and sank some shafts along the course of the 
stream and on a line having an east by north bearing of less than one hundred yards in 
• ,,_‘ e most P rol «isiug shaft. No. 2, was sunk in the bed of the stream, which was 
ar lhcmlly deflected round it, and was carried to a depth of over 40 feet, through light- 
* Choung = river or stream. 
