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masses is about 45 feet in diameter, of irregular shape and lighter color, than the detached masses, and evidently has not been nearly so much subjected to the action of fire as the latter; they are much softer, and have interstices filled with earthy matter, which has been subjected to great heat, but are only partially vitrified.

This substance either passes into unburnt clay of the 1st alluvial stratum, or the stratum of superior sandstone, on both of which it rests, (Specs. c and d.)

The singular appearance and conformation of the detached masses could not fail to attach something of the marvellous to them. Native tradition states them to be the stones which the army besieging Lunká, under Ráma and Lutchmun, were enjoined to bring for the purpose of building the celebrated bridge; but enough having been accumulated, messengers were despatched with the news, two of whom posted themselves at Murka and Mhow, two ghauts on the Jumna, and each, Lungoor and Talah, arriving with his load, hearing the welcome tidings, it was deposited here, and he proceeded lightly on his journey. I had this version from a Brahmin, who begged me, whilst getting my specimens, to remember that such relics should on no account be disturbed.

Of Isolated Masses, the Remains of Beds of Nodule Kankar.

Whenever these remains occur, the river is by their considerable extent generally contracted in its course, causing the water to rush through the narrow but deep passages between isolated masses of what was once one continuous bed.

The passage at Karim Khán (fig. 1, Pl. XVI.) (the point d'appine of the Jamna works,) is now and has been perhaps for centuries, solely affected by the presence of the remains of an extensive bed of nodule kankar, and is at the present moment the worst pass in the river for boats passing downwards at all seasons and upwards in the monsoons. As a description of this is applicable in its general outlines to every locality where these remains occur, I shall confine myself to it.

This bed has originally been and is still partially connected with and resting on the right bank of the river; its surface I imagine to be about 75 or 80 feet below the average level of the Bundelkhand bank, and the bed of the river to be about 16 feet below the surface. The left or Dúab bank is not above two-thirds the height of the opposite one, and is protected by a very extensive shingle shoal; had it been a bank on which the stream would have made any impression, the river would have certainly taken a course more free from impediments than the one it now pursues. The stream being thus confined, has, by the gradual deepening of the river throughout its course, been at last

thrown over this bed of 'kankar with sufficient force to break it up partially, and the remains present a number of detached masses protruding across two-thirds of the river, from the right bank, standing from four to five feet above the surface of the water at low levels, exposing the whole thickness of the bed, which varies between three and five feet, and an average of two feet of its substratum a stiff clay, and between them deep channels are worn. The action of so rapid a stream on all sides of these bases of clay (the supports of the superincumbent kankar) is gradually but surely reducing them, and in the course of time, becoming too feeble to support its weight. The kankar will be deposited in the bed of the river some 12 or 14 feet lower than its present position.

These masses, which vary from a few feet to many yards in size, are externally very compact and hard; but on penetrating 18 inches, it will be found, that they maintain inside this crust a similar appearance and quality with any bed that might be opened in the centre of the Dúáb, namely, the interstices between the nodules being filled with a loamy clay, and having every appearance of having been undisturbed since the formation of the bed.

It was on the strength of the unsuccessful search I have instituted in and under such strata as this, that I hazarded the opinion that I should consider the slightest discovery of fossil (animal) remains at a level corresponding with the deepest parts of the river, as the merest possible accident: perhaps I should have rather said, fossil remains may possibly be found in the Dúáb general alluvium; but it must be under parallel circumstances with those producing the Jumna fossils, as it is impossible to suppose that during the accumulation of this immense formation that such a space was void of animal life.

The question mooted by GRIFFITHS in speaking of the fossil remains of elephants, "Can we suppose that none are buried there (in climates to which the elephant is native), or that the bones have been decomposed by the force of heat;" chimes so much in tune with the idea that possessed me on examining every excavation in the Dúáb to which I could get access, previous to being acquainted with the section formed by the Jumna, that even now I should feel little difficulty in asserting, that unless some sufficient body intervenes between or⚫ganic remains and the decomposing power of the sun's rays, soon after their assuming a morbid state, no vestige of them ultimately remains. : Experience has proved that they are buried, fossilized, and petrified within the limits of this general alluvium; but in my opinion they are not even cotemporary with this formation, but of a date more recent : for with such an ample section before us, as is presented by the Jumna,

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