PART 3 .] 
Oldham : Geology of Lite Central Provinces. 
79 
abundant, but locally considerable numbers have been met with. Shells are not uncommon, 
and they appear to be all of species now existing in the rivers. These beds are obviously of 
fresh-water origin, and were in all probability the fluvio-lacustrine deposits of the rivers 
themselves, at a time when the levels and areas of their valleys were very different from those 
now existing. 
It is not intended to give here a complete list of the organic remains found, which would 
belong rather to a detailed description. But the very remarkable admixture of existing 
and extinct forms which these deposits exhibit must be noticed; for along with well-pre¬ 
served remains of Hippopotamus, Rhinoceros, Mastodon, peculiar forms of JSlephas, and 
very remarkable Bovines (which, if not identical with European forms, approximate so closely 
that nothing but the most miuuto distinctions can he made, while they are entirely distinct 
from any present Indian forms), are found equally well preserved remains of animals still 
existing in the country. The not uncommon tortoise* (Emys \Pangshurd] tecta) is found 
quite as fossilised in these beds as any of the other l-emains, and yet the species still lives in 
the valley itself. The imbedded shells, too, are all of species still living, and the evidence 
is conclusive that the change from the condition under which Hippopotami wallowed in 
the muds, and Rhinoceros roamed in the swampy forests of the country, where Mastodons 
abounded, and where the strange forms of the Sivatherium, Dinotherium, Camelopardalis 
existed, has been one of continuous and gradual alteration, unmarked by any great breaks 
or vast changes in climate. In the general series of successive epochs into which the geo¬ 
logical periods distinguished in Europe have been classified, these ossiferous gravels and days 
would seem to mark the upper portion of the Miocene and the Pliocene-, while, with 
unbroken succession, and with nothing more than local change or break, these Pliocene beds 
pass upwards into the deposits now being formed. We thus find that numerous forms 
of animals, which are now contemporaries of man, existed at this very early period cotem¬ 
porary with numerous forms of the larger animals now utterly extinct in this country. 
Was not man also eotemporary with these now extinct animals ? As I have now endea¬ 
voured to show briefly, there is no physical break in the long series that would account for 
the destruction of these species ; there is not a shadow of proof that the country was not 
then, as now, fitted for the abode of man. And although no human remains have yet been 
fouud, there is not a single fact which would lead to the conviction that man could not 
have existed and lived under the conditions which then prevailed. In this point of view, 
the discovery—although not in the Central Provinces—of a well-formed agato knife,f which 
had obviously becu in use, and which was undoubtedly shaped and made with an intelligent 
purpose, in gravels of the same age as these ossiferous gravels of which we have been speak¬ 
ing and also containing remains of large animals, becomes one of the highest interest, as 
giving some amount of positive proof of the existence of man at this early period (Pliocene). 
Of a later date, and scattered through the upper soils of large areas, flint (or rather 
agate) knives, agate cores, from which these knives 
have been chipped off) and numerous forms of 
artificially-shaped agate implements, have been met with in the Narbada and Nagpur 
country. And of a later date still, and invariably iu the surface-soils, or taken out of these 
soils and brought together under trees, or at the rude shrines of the forest races, a large 
number of well-shaped and polished celts, axes, and other shaped stone implements have been 
found in the Central Provinces. The most remarkable fact perhaps connected with these 
implements is the identity of form and of design which they exhibit when compared with 
those found abundantly in Northern Europe—an identity common to both forms of these 
stone antiquities, the rudely-chipped and almost undressed, or, as they have been called, the 
Palaeolithic, and the more finished and polished, or Neolithic, types. 
Stone implements. 
* See Records Geological Survey of India, 1869, p. 36. 
t Ibid , 1868, p. 65. 
