Geological papers on western India, including Cutch, Sinde and the south-east coast of Arabia : to which is appended a summary of the geology of India generally / edited for the Government by Henry J. Carter.

Date:
1857
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Geological papers on western India, including Cutch, Sinde and the south-east coast of Arabia : to which is appended a summary of the geology of India generally / edited for the Government by Henry J. Carter. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    the mind is almost lost in the contemplation “ of their grandeur” ; but “that unfortunately the relative age of the eruptions must remain for the present undetermined, no vestiges of secondary or tertiary forma- tions having been detected within the region.” Having therefore, in 18.32, collected a series of lacustrine fossils, probably referable to the tertiary epoch, from a portion of this district extending 140 miles north and south, and having procured others from localities to the north and west of that which furnished my own collection, I am induced to sub- mit the specimens to the Society.* If they should be deemed of suffi- cient value, I wish a selection to be deposited in the museum, to afford a means of comparison with a duplicate set, which I shall forward to the Asiatic Society of Bengal.f But it is not alone by supplying some data from which to infer the relative age of the great trap formation, that these specimens are valu- able. They will afford the means of connecting the great sandstone formations of the south and north of India, containing the celebrated diamond mines of Parteal (Golcondah), Bangnapilly, and Panna, as well as the limestones and schists associated with them ; and which, from the latitude of Madras to the banks of the Ganges, exhibit the same characters, and are broken up or elevated by granite or trap rocks, in no respect differing in mineralogical characters or geological relations. A few remarks on these formations, and the physical geography of the countries in which they occur, will be a necessary introduction to a more particular account of that portion of the trap district in which the fossils were found, Mr. Calder’s sketch not being sufficiently detailed, and the map attached to his memoir containing some errors of material importance.} C»eneral. Sketch of the Physical P'eatures, Hydrography, &c. An elevated tract to the north-west of Bundlecund (not included within the range of the Map) may be considered as the geological con- nexion between the provinces watered by the southern branches of the Ganges and the Deccan, including all the countries to the south of the Nerbudda. From the north of this plateau, which extends far to the west, a number of great rivers descend, by a series of rapids and falls over sandstone escarpments, into the valley of the Jumna and the Ganges. From the east and south of the same tract, the Mahanuddy river collects a great body of water, and after a comparatively short * See [oiiginal] Plate XLVII., [foe. cit.—Ed.] drawn, engraved, and described by Mr. James de Carl Sowerby. I ^ *ie ser*cs °I specimens presented by Mr. Malcolmson to the Geological Society have been arranged in the foreign department of the museum. } Asiatic Researches, vol. xviii.