he
city of Pompeii. I am satisfied, from long and careful examination,
that the greater part of this basalt, which covers the tableland of
Central and Southern India, must have been held for some time in
suspension in the ocean or lake into which it was first thrown in the
shape of ashes, and then gradually deposited. This alone can account
for its frequent appearance of stratification, for the gentle
blending of its particles with those of the sand near the surface of
the latter; and, above all, for those level steps, or tables, lying
one above another horizontally in parallel bars on one range,
corresponding exactly with the same parallel lines one above another
on a range twenty or thirty miles across the valley. Mr. Scrope's
theory is, I believe, that these are all mere flowing _coulees_ of
lava, which, in their liquid state, filled hollows, but afterwards
became of a harder texture, as they dried and crystallized, than the
higher rocks around them; the consequence of which is that the latter
has been decomposed and washed away, while the basalt has been left
to form the highest elevations. My opinion is that these steps, or
stairs, at one time formed the beds of the ocean, or of great lakes,
and that the substance of which they are composed was, for the most
part, projected into the water, and there held in suspension till
gradually deposited. There are, however, amidst these steps, and
beneath them, masses of more compact and crystalline basalt, that
bear evident signs of having been flows of lava.[l3]

Reasoning from analogy at Jubbulpore, where some of the basaltic
cappings of the hills had evidently been thrown out of craters long
after this surface had been raised above the waters, and become the
habitation both of vegetable and animal life, I made the first
discovery of fossil remains in the Nerbudda valley. I went first to a
hill within sight of my house in 1828,[14] and searched exactly
between the plateau of basalt that covered it and the stratum
immediately below, and there I found several small trees with roots,
trunks, and branches, all entire, and beautifully petrified. They had
been only recently uncovered by the washing away of a part of the
basaltic plateau. I soon after found some fossil bones of
animals.[15] Going over to Sagar, in the end of 1830, and reasoning
there upon the same analogy, I searched for fossil remains along the
line of contact between the basalt and the surface upon which it ha