This limestone is fossiliferous, but did not yield any species which were perfect enough for Dr. Cook to recognize.

The specimens of lead and iron ore forwarded to me are accompanied as usual by heavy-spar. The former metal occurs as galena and the red carbonate, and the latter as brown hematite and ochres. The presence of the spheroidal masses figured in his paper at p. 66 l. e. which consist of an encrustation of heavy-spar round an organic nucleus, oceurring with iron among the shales, which underlie the " red and white limestone," adds to the probability that this spar is also connected with "the dark, blue limestone." In structure, the nuclear or brown part, when polished and placed under a microscope, is so like the structure of Sponge, that, although no spicules can be seen, I can hardly hesitate to pronounce these spheroids to have been a species of Tethya.

Having thus, assisted by Dr. Cook, given a short summary of his discoveries so far as his private correspondence, his specimens and his published "Papers" admit, let us now, before concluding, direct our attention for a few moments to that deposit to which I stated, while treating of the Nummulitic Series, I should return more particularly, viz. the deposit of Orbitolites Mantelli, Cart. at Nal, (p. 74).

The specimen of this deposit (which I have but lately received) corresponds to the description Dr. Cook has given of it (p. 71), viz. it is composed of thin layers, almost like leaves, which, when examined, are found to consist of Orbitolites Mantelli, Cart., (Orbitoides Mantelli, d'Orb.) Cycloclypeus, and Heterostegina,

Of the series of strata in which this bed is situated, Dr. Cook states that, the limestone is in some parts crystalline, and contains no fossils; in others the foliated stratum mentioned occurs; and towards the top much coral, and no foraminifera ; while the whole rests on serpentine and diorite rocks, but the union of the two could not be seen on account of the débris which covered it.

The largest specimen of Orbitolites Mantelli sent is 2 inches in diameter; the vertical growth inch wide and thick; while the thickness of the brim or horizontal portion does not exceed th of an inch, half way between the centre and the circumference, and but a little more even up to the commencement of the central prominence or vertical growth. The other thin fossil mentioned by Dr. Cook as forming part of the mass is Cycloclypeus, in which the chambers are oblong and the specimens not exceeding half an inch in diameter. It hardly differs from the one described by Dr. Carpenter, while the Heterostegina is very small indeed, not being more than inch in its longest diameter. All these lie parallel on each other in a softish

yellow argillo-calcareous matrix. At first I thought that the deposit also contained Orbiculina, but in this I have since found that I was deceived, viz. by the sections of Orbitolites Mantelli, when growing from a very minute central or germ-cell, assuming at first, the form of the lines on an engine-turned watch-case, before the rows of cells become cyclical.

In describing Orbitolites Mantelli (p. 83 of this No.), which was done before receiving the specimens under consideration, I have alluded to the opinion which I formally held, viz. that it sometimes had an indefinite, thalloid growth, like the polypidom of the Polyzoa, but that now, I believed the form to be always circumscribed or discoid. The expanded, flat specimen, now under consideration, which is only a variety, confirms this view, and points out how the original opinion might be, and was in my case, falsely deduced, viz. from fragments of specimens of the same expanded variety, in which the absence of the vertical growth made the wide horizontal margin (the only part remaining) look like a thin, thalloid expansion.

The chief interest of this deposit is that, in organic remains as well as mineral composition, it exactly corresponds to the deposit at Takah, on the south-east coast of Arabia, midway between Ras el Had and Aden; while there the series rests conformably apparently on fine, white, compact, lithographic, limestone, but further toward Ras el Had, where it contains nummulites, as at the Island of Masira and at Muskat, it rests conformably on serpentine and diorite rocks. I, however, only saw the Orbitolites Mantelli, &c. at Takah. In Sind, Orbitolites Mantelli and Nummulites sub-lævigata are found together in a similar matrix, of which I have a specimen, obtained, I think, from the Hala Range.

As regards the Nummulitic Series, the Cretaceous Strata, and Dark Blue Limestone, together with the presence of trap, serpentine, and diorite rocks, I see in Dr. Cook's descriptions, and in the specimens he has forwarded to me, great resemblance to what I observed and have described on the south-east coast of Arabia. The dark-blue limestone of Ras Furtak too, in which undoubted cretacean fossils existed, was strongly charged with iron pyrites; while the specimens of limestone which Mr. Blackwell brought from the Nurbudda, where he found it in connection with a large development of iron (near Tendukira, I think) put me much in mind of the blue limestone of the cretacean series on the South-east Coast of Arabia; and this too may also be part of the dark blue limestone bed of Beloochistan, in which Dr. Cook found both lead and iron developed to such a great extent, near Khozdar. The green carbonate of copper discovered by Dr. Cook was chiefly

found in the serpentine rocks at Nal (p. 92). It is also found in the serpentine rocks at Muskat and the island of Masira on the S. E. coast of Arabia. There is chert among Dr. Cook's specimens also bearing green carbonate of copper on the plane surfaces. So at Muskat, there are slight traces of it among the nummulitic strata. In fact, the presence of the serpentine and diorite rocks seems to be accompanied by a slight diffusion of copper in themselves as well as in the sedimentary strata in their vicinity everywhere, in both this part of Arabia and in Mekran.

One point, however, I would notice, viz. that in none of Dr. Cook's specimens have I seen the Orbitolina, viz. O. lenticularis, which abounds so generally and so plentifully in some parts of the cretaceous series on the South-east coast of Arabia as to form (e. g. Ras Fartak), almost exclusively, whole strata a hundred feet in thickness.

Lastly I must testify to the indefatigable exertions of Dr. Cook in pursuit of geological facts in the locality under consideration; his praiseworthy success under the difficulties he must have laboured, and his great intelligence, without which, his private correspondence, his Papers," and his having transmitted to me his specimens carefully labelled for examination, I could have written nothing of the above summary. Whatever information therefore the reader may have derived from it must be considered due to Dr. Cook.

66

Remarks on the Geology of Nagpur. By the Rev. S. HISLOP.*

In the "Geological Papers on Western India" there was inserted information on the geology of Nágpur up till 1857. At the request of the distinguished Editor of that volume, I now present the result of more recent researches.

For an account of the Intertrappean Freshwater and Estuarine formation of Peninsular India, I would refer the reader to the Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society, Vol. XVI., page 154, where are given descriptions of twenty-five new species of lacustrine shells from Nágpur ; one lacustrine and one landshell from the Narbaddá Territory; thirty-five estuarine shells from Rájámandri, and two new genera of fossil insects, and three species of Cypridæ from Nágpur. Allusion is also made to two minerals regarded as new by Prof.ssor Haughton of Dublin.+

Written by Mr. Hislop.

+ One of these, heretofore known in India as Green Calcspar, but named "Hislopite," after my friend Mr. Hislop (Dub. Phil. Mag. January 1859), appears to me to be no more a distinct species than moss-agate is of Calcedony; that is to say, the

These are the only specimens from the deposit that have yet been examined. Our fossil vegetables and Vertebrata remain for description.

To the fruits there have been few additions since the publication of the Memoir submitted to the Bombay Asiatic Society in 1853. With the co-operation of my friend, Dr. Rawes, one or two new species have been found of the compound fruits, which were believed to belong to the Aroidea, and to approach nearest to the genus Pothos or Scindapsus. This opinion, entertained by my late excellent colleague, Mr. Hunter, and myself, is concurred in by eminent botanists at home. At the same time the progress of discovery has modified a view formerly announced. Two seeds lying together, which we supposed to resemble Bowerbank's Xylinoprionites, have turned out to be only a part of a compound fruit, nearly resembling the Petraphiloides from Sheppey. Others exhibit a remarkable similarity to those lately obtained from the Woolwich clay near Dulwich. In a particular spot there was laid bare a considerable number of somewhat spherical seed-vessels, apparently one-celled, and near these, two specimens of a fruit with three large seeds, separated by thin dissepiments, which may have belonged to the order of Palms. In another place was discovered an interesting flat, globular fruit, full of seeds, probably a Cucumites; and at Paháḍsingha, as well as at Tákli, where most of the other vegetable remains occur, there was brought to light a new species of Chara, which I have named C. elliptica.

same kind of branched, tubular, confervoid structure filled with green-earth exists in it as in moss-agate, and imparts to it the same kind of green colour. We have also green Heulandite among the trap minerals here similarly coloured, but the green-earth is in minute, acicular, fusiform bodies (crystals?), about 1-2800th of an inch long, arranged more or less parallelly and in broken lines and groups, tending only, to a confervoid appearance, though as much like acicular crystallisation. Here, evidently, we have a mere physical combination, while in Prehnite and in the delicate green, and even the pink varieties of Apophyllite, (of which such splendid specimens have been obtained from the cuttings through the trap for the railway here), the colour, apparently derived from the same source (for the iron in green-earth is at one time green, at another red, and at another yellow, with every intervening shade), appears to be diffused chemically, throughout the crystal,

Turning briefly, but to another interesting point connected with this tubular, confervoid structure, which, existing in ninerals that have been crystallized in trap-geodes cannot be, as supposed by some, organic remains; we, nevertheless, must be struck with its great resemblance to the branched, filamentous Algæ, and I think, at the same time inclined to infer that the law which presides over the development of the form of this mineral structure in Calcedony, &c., may be the same law-of-form which exists generally in the organic kingdom.— H. J.C.

The remains of fishes at Tákli and Paháḍsingha consist chiefly of detached scales, some being Ganoidan and others Cycloidan. In the subtrappean yellow limestone of Dongargaum, sixteen miles E.S.E of Chikni, the impression of a fish was found about 6 inches long and 1·8 inch at the broadest part, which must have been covered with cycloid scales, of a pattern that Sir P. G. Egerton had never seen. The same locality yielded the head of a fish about 9 inches long, with a produced muzzle, armed with sharp sauroid teeth, and rows of smaller ones. A fragment of bone, with 21 of apparently the very same smaller teeth, was dug out from the intertrappean of Tákli. According to Sir Philip, the ichthyolite most nearly allied to this is the Sphyrænodus of the London clay. In the Dongargaum limestone there was also embedded a portion of a Ganoid fish, Lepidotus or Lepidosteus (?) which is 6 inches broad, and when perfect was probably 2 feet long. This seems to be the species which has left so many of its scales in the intertrappean of Tákli and Paháḍsingha. A separate vertebra of a fish from the subtrappean red clay of Phisdúra, 8 miles E. of Chikni, measures 7 inch in diameter.

Reptilia.--In my paper in the Geological Journal* I have expressed an opinion that some large bones, found in the clay at Phisdúra, are the remains of Pachyderms. Having since been favoured with the opinion of one well qualified to judge, Dr. Falconer, I am convinced that they are not Mammalian at all, but rather Reptilian. Among them were a portion of a femur, eleven inches broad at the condyles, and several detached cup and ball vertebræ. In the same field with these was picked up a strong conical tooth, serrated on both edges, and apparently worn at the crown; and there was collected an abundance of coprolites of all sizes, from inch to 6 inches in length. The largest is of an oval shape; another nearly as large, but imperfect at one end, reminds me, by its convolutions and straight tapering cylindrical form, of a piece of an Orthoceratite. In the intertrappean at Tákli, Dr. Rawes met with a tooth, which in shape and size resembles those of Megalosaurus Bucklandi. At the same place small vertebræ and other minute bones, scattered through the deposit, may have belonged to frogs. Here also were embedded the remains of a freshwater tortoise, and in the subtrappean clay of Phisdúra part of a very thick plastron (?) of another species of the Chelonian order.

In the above remarks on our more recently discovered fossils, in order to designate the freshwater strata containing them, I have sometimes

*Geol. Jour. Vol. XVI., p. 165.