RECORDS 
OF THE 
GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF INDIA. 
Part 3.] 1873. [August. 
Notes on a Celt found by Mb. Hacket in the ossiferous deposits of the Narbada 
Valley (Pliocene of Falconer) : on the age of the deposits, by Mr. H. B. Medlicott ; 
on the associated shells, by Mr. W. Theobald. 
The eelt is formed of Vindhyan quartzite, such as might he procured at any point along 
the northern edge of the valley; it is of the pointed oval shape, 5" x 3"f, of very symme¬ 
trical outline (see figure); and, although rather roughly chipped on the faces, it is unques¬ 
tionably a manufactured article. Mr. Hacket dug it out himself from where he found it 
lying flat, and two-thirds buried, in a steep face of the stiff, reddish, mottled, uustratified clay, 
about six feet above low water level, and about three feet below the upper surface of the 
clay, upon which there rested about twenty feet of the gravel with bones. Prom the odge of 
the cliff of gravel, there is a steep slope passing up through the ravine ground, so common 
along the border of the main river channels, to the general level of the plains, at 90 to 100 
feet above the level of the Narbada. The locality is on the left bank of the Narbada, near 
the village of Bhutra, eight miles due north of Gadarwara. 
The age of the ossiferous deposits. —In bringing forward an authentic specimen of 
human manufacture from the ossiferous deposits of the Narbada valley, some expression of 
opinion will be expected from geologists in India regarding the age of those well-known beds; 
the more so because a name has been already applied to them by a high authority, implying 
an age very much more remote than that of any human remains as yet found in other coun¬ 
tries. In all questions relating to the determination of vertebrate fossils, Dr. Falconer s 
judgment carries great weight. In India he has not as yet had a competitor in this line of 
research ; and even in Europe he took a leading part in the same studies, connected with the 
inquiry into the antiquity of man. He determined a number of fossil bones from the Nar¬ 
bada deposits, and invariably spoke of them as pliocene. 
In 1868, the Superintendent of the Geological Survey described in those Records (Vol. I, 
p. 66,) an agate flake, or knife, found by Mr. Wynne in the ossiferous clays of the Godavari 
valley, which he affiliated to like deposits in other parts of India. Iu this connection Fal¬ 
coner’s views were quoted at length by Dr. Oldham in a tone of high approval, without any 
expression of dissent or of question as to the matter of age ; and thus at least a tacit assent 
and a fresh lease pf life was given to the opinion that these deposits belong to the pliocene 
age of geologists, the name being used by both authors in the confident expectation that 
these deposits would yield evidence of man’s existence. I do not pretend that the question 
of age can he finally settled now ; hut it is important to point out that the opinion quoted is 
not well founded. 
