71 
Records of the Geological. Survey of India. 
[VOL. IV, 
Passing further southward similar rooks are more widely developed in the Chanda 
district, and cover a large area, concealing the underlying Bardhar beds ; there the rocks 
are, as a whole, less fine-grained than in the neighbourhood of Nagpur, and the tendency to 
become more conglomeratic in the upper hods of the group is still more markedly exhibited 
than in the case already noticed. In this field also they appear to he closely connected with, 
and to pass up into a great thickness of bright red clays with thin-bedded sandstones, which 
belong undoubtedly to the Panchet series—well seen in the Wardha about Porsa and in 
the country round, giving additional evidence of the connection of the two groups. These 
rocks—the Kamtlii beds—yield in many of their beds admirable building stones, while others 
of a coarser texture are used as millstones or querns. Quarries exist at Karnthf, Silewara, 
Bhokara, &e., also in the Chanda district, but owing to the comparative poverty and sparse¬ 
ness of the population, they are here less worked than in the Nagpur country. The white 
ai'gillaceous band which is used near Chauda town, and which can he traced for miles along 
the country, is very even in texture, and can be carved into very minute forms of ornaments 
(a kind of work which is very skilfully done at Chanda), but it is rather soft. The beds, 
excepting the hard ferruginous pebbly grits, are not, generally speaking, very compact, and the 
surface of the ground becomes covered with loose sand resulting from their disintegration. 
The soil on these, except where they are covered by the alluvial deposits, is pour and little 
cultivated, almost the whole of this tract being covered with jun gle. 
The fossils found in these Kdmtlvi beds have been noticed above. The fine sandstones 
of Karnthf, Silewara, &c., have yielded very beautiful and numerous specimens of the large 
Glossopteris Browniana ,—a fossil-fern common in the coal-bearing rocks of Bengal and 
also in those of Australia. Similar fronds are found, but more rarely, in the finer beds of the 
vicinity of Chauda. 
We have noticed these so-called Kdmtht beds a little more in detail than their relative 
importance in a general sketch would justify, because of their local development, and of the 
interesting fossils which they contain. 
In ascending order the next important series of rocks is that to which the name of 
Panchet has been given. This, which is a very 
Panchet series. w u 
extensive formation in Bengal and in the country 
intervening between that and Jabalpur, is not so largely developed in the Central Pro¬ 
vinces. Indeed there is still much doubt as to the true limits and true parallel of many of 
the rocks which would probably at first be classed under this group. There is another 
peculiar feature: in the Bengal coal-fields, the so-called Low tar-Panchet group, consisting 
principally of red days, with fine-grained, thin-bedded, often calcareous sandstones, both of 
red and greenish white colours, forms a sot of beds of very considerable thickness and 
wide extent. But on passing to the west this group rapidly disappears and soon seems to he 
entirely wanting, while the Upper Panchet group, consisting chieily of coarse red con¬ 
glomerates, &c., with numerous ferruginous hands, becomes more largely developed, and 
constitutes almost the whole of the series. Still further to the west, however, as in the 
ChhindwarS fields near Umreth, these red-clays and thin-bedded fine-grained sandstones 
recur with a considerable development. And similar beds cover a large area on the south of 
the Chanda coal-field (Porsa and all the country around), aiid also appear in other minor 
patches throughout the Chanda field and in Berar. These pass upwards into coarser beds, 
pebbly and conglomeratic, and it is not an easy task to make out the exact relation of these 
to the adjoining rocks in a country so very much covered as is the greater part of the 
Chanda district. Similar rocks are seen again further south (Maledi), and here, as at 
Man gif to the north of Chanda, have yielded organic remains, which establish with 
tolerable accuracy their true position in the general European scale of geological formations. 
