76 
Records of the Geological Survey of India. 
[vol. xv. 
This Mahddeo group was first established after a brief examination of these hills in 
.,, , , 1856-57, and was shown to contain a vast thickness of 
Mahadeo beds. 
massive sandstones, with many ferruginous bands 
which appeared to be entirely unconformable on the Damudd beds forming the lower ground 
adjoining. Unfortunately the same name was applied to rocks in other places which showed 
an approximation to the same general character, and which appeared to stand in the same 
general relation of an entirely unconformable series above the Damudd rocks. It was from 
the first indicated that these Mahddeo rooks would require further examination. The 
progress of geological investigation in India has since shown the necessity also of greater 
sub-division than was at first apparent. These Mahddeo rocks, with the exception of a few 
badly-preserved and generally large stems, are, so far as known, untossiliferous, and have 
therefore not attracted quite as much attention as some of the other series I have noticed. 
This absence of fossils also, and the detached, or comparatively detached, positions in 
which the Mahddeo rocks occur, have rendered the question of their geological age more 
difficult than it would have otherwise been.* Mr. W. Blanlbrd, carrying up his examination 
of the country from the west, gave some good reasons for supposing that the Mahddeo 
beds were the continuation and expansion of the cretaceous sandstones found near Bagh 
iu the western Narbada. A similar general conclusion had been suggested by Mr. Hislop 
previously, hut without much proof. On the other hand, it is right to state that Mr. 
Medlicott, working up from the east, saw reason for supposing that the Mahddeo beds in the 
Narbada districts, which he presumed to he truly representative of the Bandogarh rocks 
in South Bewa (and as a subordinate member of which ho considered the Jabalpur beds), 
were at the same time only an upward extension of the same uninterrupted succession of 
deposits, which elsewhere had been justly believed to belong to the Panchet series. 
It will be seen from this that the true positiou of these beds has not as yet been fixed. 
When first examined it was by mo supposed that they, including the Lametd group (to which 
we shall presently refer), represented the lowest portion of the tertiary period. The Rev. 
Mr. Hislop, whose untiring exertions have done so much to elucidate the pala-ontological 
history of the Central Provinces, was disposed to view them as below all the tertiary deposits, 
and as representing in India the upper portion of the eretaeeous epoch of Europe—a view 
strongly confirmed by Mr. Blanford, who was disposed to put them only a little lower in the 
series, while Mr. Medlicott would now make them much more ancient, and would place them 
in the same sub-division as the Jabalpur beds, which latter are probably on the horizon of 
the Kota beds—that is, he would consider them Lower Jurassic.^ As stated, the question 
cannot at present (January 1870) be definitely settled. 
When first examining the Narbada valley Mr. J. Gr. Medlicott distinguished in the 
country fringing the river to the south, and between 
Zametd beds. ,, , , . , ... , T , , . . 
the Mahadeo Luis and Jabalpur, a senes-oi well- 
marked beds, which he was then disposed to consider as the uppermost group of the 
Mahddeo formation, and to which he applied the local name of Lameta. These Lametd 
beds consisted chiefly of whitish earthy and silicious (cherty) limestones or calcareous muds, 
often a good deal indurated. These sandy calcareous beds formed only a thin band im¬ 
mediately underlying the trappeau rocks. Further and subsequent examination, extending 
more to the east, proved that this hand was entirely independent of the rocks below it, with 
* The statement originally made that a very perfect, specimen of a true Areheffomunts found under the Pach- 
marlii hills had been obtained from these rocks, was at once refuted by the mineral character of the rock in which 
it was imbedded. It was from the Damudd beds below. 
t The Rijmah&l group of Bengal would in this view be of course younger than the Mah dddva of the 
Central Provinces. 
