REPORT ON GEOLOGY. 
395 
In Southern Asia, many of the British residents in India have 
been far from inactive ; among these we may specify the names 
of Franklin, Voysey, Herbert, Christie, Low, Hardie and Go- 
van ; but Calder’s general memoir on the Geology of India 
(.Asiatic Journal , 1828,) conveniently and ably brings together 
in one view the substance of the insulated observations of 
others 
* From these sources we learn that primitive formations in which granitic 
rocks bear the principal proportion, occupy not only the great Himmalayan 
northern chain, but also three fourths of the entire peninsula, from the vale of 
the Ganges below Patna to Cape Cormorin ; although these rocks are frequently 
overlaid by a thin crust of laterite, (a ferruginous clay considered as associated 
with the trap formation.) The transition formations have not been clearly distin¬ 
guished ; the secondary formations described are :—1. The carboniferous group. 
Coal has been said to occur extensively in the grits hounding the southern slope 
of the Himmaleh ; butit has been questioned whether this formation is the older 
coal, or only lignite associated with nagelflue, (as on the slope of the Alps) ; 
it has been particularly described however where the river Tista issues from this 
chain (88° 35 ' long. E.), and there undoubtedly bears all the characters of the 
older formation ; its strata are highly inclined, whereas the tertiary beds, and 
even most of the secondary in this part of India, are horizontal: but the only 
coal district regularly worked is that on the river Dumoda, about 100 miles 
N.W. of Calcutta ; this extends on the banks of that river about 60 miles, and 
appears from its fossil Lycopodia to be undoubtedly the older coal; it reposes 
apparently on the surrounding primitive rocks, hut it has been conjectured that 
it may possibly extend across the delta of the Ganges to Silhet (almost 306 
miles distant at the eastern extremity of Bengal) ; it seems doubtful, however, 
whether the Silhet coal be not really modern lignite, as tertiary rocks certainly 
prevail in that quarter. No carboniferous limestone has been observed. 
2. Next to the coal we have to notice a great sandstone formation, which is 
usually considered equivalent to our new red sandstone; this includes many 
variations of character, comprising, besides sandstone and conglomerates, shales 
often approximating to older slate ; the diamond mines of Panna (in the Malwah 
country) and of the Golconda district (on the Coromandel coast) are situated 
in this formation, the matrix being a conglomerate bed with quartzose pebbles ; 
rock salt and gypsum are found where this formation extends on the N. W. 
into the great basin of the Indus ; the stratification is uniformly horizontal: no 
organic remains occur. Beginning at the Ganges on the east, this formation first 
shows itself, supporting basalt, on the Rajmahal Hills ; it again prevails through¬ 
out the interval between the confluences of the river Soane and of the Jumna 
with the Ganges, and thence stretches W.S.W. through the Bundelcund district 
to the banks of the Nermuda (which flows into the Gulf of Cambay), as far as 
79° long. E.; where it is overlaid by the eastern extremity of the great basaltic 
district of North Western India nearSagar : the red sandstone shows itself again, 
emergingfrom beneath the north-western edge of the basaltic district, at Nee- 
much, near the western sources of the Chumbal (the great southern branch of 
the Jumna), and at Bang, in the valley of the Nermuda. In both places, as 
also along the central portion of the platform before described, stretching through 
Malwah, it is frequently covered with a thin crust of grey argillaceous lime¬ 
stone, supposed to represent our lias, but nearly destitute of organic remains, 
although a single Gryphite is said to have been found. The general absence of 
organic remains in the secondary rocks of India is remarkable ; but Mr. Voysey 
mentions an argillaceous bed full of fossil shells (species not stated,) beneath 
