On the Geology and Fossils of the Neighbourhood of Nágpur, Central India

Abstract

In tracing the geological history of this district from the facts that have been brought forward, we are made to feel that the early epochs are involved in the utmost obscurity. While in many other countries the records of what took place in Palæozoic times have been preserved in successive strata of the earth9s crust, in the Dakhan they have been wholly obliterated. It is not until we come down to the Jurassic era that we meet with archives whose characters can be read. Then we find that Central India was covered by a large body of fresh water, which stretched southward into the Peninsula, and eastward into Bengal, while on the north and west it communicated by some narrow channel with the sea. On the shores of this lake earth-worms crawled, and small reptiles (frogs) crept over the soft mud. In its pools sported flocks of little Entomostracans resembling the modem <i>Estheria</i>, mingled with which were Ganoid fishes and Labyrinthodonts. The streams which fed it brought down into its bed the debris of the plutonic and metamorphic rocks which then constituted the greater part of the dry land, and which were covered with an abundant vegetation of Ferns, most of them distinguished by the entireness of their fronds. Low-growing plants with grooved and jointed stems inhabited the marshes ; and Conifers and other Dicotyledonous trees, with Palms, raised their heads aloft. Meanwhile plutonic action was going on, and strata, as they were formed, were shattered and reconstructed into a