have been greatly developed during the last half-century. The formation of the Central Provinces as a separate administration in 1861 secured for the Sāgar and Nerbudda territories the attention which they failed to obtain from the distant Government of the North-Western Provinces. Sir Richard Temple, the first Chief Commissioner, administered the Central Provinces with extraordinary energy and success.
193
Rājā Chhatarsāl Bundela was Rājā of Pannā. The history of Chhatarsāl is related in I.G. (1908), vol. xix, p. 400, s.v. Panna State. In 1729 he called in the Marāthās to help him against Muhammad Khan Bangash, and when he died in 1731 rewarded them by bequeathing one-third of his dominions to the Peshwa. The correct date of his death is Pūs Badi 3, Samvat 1788 (Hamīrpur Settlement Report (1880), note at end of chapter 2). The date is often given inaccurately.
194
Chitrakōt, in the Bānda district of Bundēlkhand, under the government of the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh, and seventy-one miles distant from Allahabad, is a famous place of pilgrimage, much frequented by the votaries of Rāma. Large fairs are held there.
195
The performance of miraculous cures at the tomb is not necessary for the deification of a person who has been specially feared in his lifetime, or has died a violent death. Either of these conditions is enough to render his ghost formidable, and worthy of propitiation. Shrines to such persons are very numerous both in Bundēlkhand and other parts of India, Miracles, of course, occur at nearly every shrine, and are too common and well attested to attract much attention.
196
These observations are as true to-day as they were in the author's time. Disastrous cases of over-assessment were common in the early years of British rule, and the mischief so wrought has been sometimes traceable for generations afterwards. Since 1833 the error, though less common, has not been unknown.
197
Since writing the above, I have seen Colonel Sykes's notes on the formations of Southern India in the Indian Review. The facts there described seem all to support my conclusion, and his map would answer just as well for Central as for Southern India; for the banks of the Nerbudda and Chambal, Sōn, and Mahānadī, as well as for those of the Bām and the Bīmā. Colonel Sykes does not, I believe, attempt to account for the stratification of the basalt; he merely describes it. [W. H. S.]
The author's theory of the subaqueous origin of the greater part of the basalt of Central and Southern India, otherwise known as the 'Deccan Trap Series', had been supported by numerous excellent geologists, but W. T. Blanford proved the theory to be untenable, there being 'clear and unmistakable evidence that the traps were in great part of sub-aerial formation', The intercalation of sedimentary beds with fresh-water fossils is conclusive proof that the lava-flows associated with such beds cannot be submarine. The hypothesis that the lower beds of traps were poured out in a vast, but shallow, freshwater lake extending throughout the area over which the inter- trappean limestone formation extends appears to be extremely improbable. The lava seems to have been poured, during a long succession of ages, over a land surface, uneven and broken in parts, 'with intervals of rest sufficient for lakes, stocked with fresh- water mollusca, to form on the cold surfaces of several of the lava- flows' (Holland, in I.G. (1907), i. 88). A great tract of the volcanic region appears to have remained almost undisturbed to the present day, affected by sub-aerial erosion alone. The geological horizon of the Deccan trap cannot be precisely defined, but is now vaguely stated as 'the close of the cretaceous period'. The 'steps', or conspicuous terraces, traceable on the hill-sides for great distances, are explained as being 'due to the outcrop of the harder basaltic strata, or of those beds which resist best the disintegrating influences of exposure'.
The general horizontality of the Deccan trap over an area of not less than 200,000 square miles, and the absence of volcanic hills of the usual conical form, are difficulties which have caused much discussion. Some of the 'old volcanic vents' appear to have existed near Poona and Mahāblēshwar. The entire area has been subjected to sub-aerial denudation on a gigantic scale, which explains the occurrence of the basalt as the caps of isolated hills. Much further investigation is required to clear up details (Manual of the Geology of India, ed. 1, Part I, chap. 13)
198
The author took charge of the Jubbulpore District in March 1828.
199
The fossiliferous beds near Jubbulpore, described in the text, seem to belong to the group now classed as the Lamētā beds. The bones of a large dinosaurian reptile (Titanosaurus indicus) have been identified (I.G., 1907, vol. i, p. 88).
200
'Many years ago Dr. Spry (Note on the Fossil Palms and Shells lately discovered on the Table-Land of Sāgar in Central India, in J.A.S.B. for 1833, vol. ii, p. 639) and, subsequently to him, Captain Nicholls (Journal of Asiatic Soc. of Bombay, vol. v, p. 614), studied and described certain trunks of palm-trees, whose silicified remains are found imbedded in the soft intertrappean mud-beds near Sāgar. . . . The trees are imbedded in a layer of calcareous black earth, which formed the surface soil in which they grew; this soil rests on, and was made up of the disintegration of, a layer of basalt. It is covered over by another and similar layer of the same rock near where the trees occur. . . . The palm-trees, now found fossilized, grew in the soil, which, in the condition of a black calcareous earthy bed, we now find lying round their prostrate stems. They fell (from whatever cause), and lay until their silicification was complete. A slight depression of the surface, or some local or accidental check of some drainage- course, or any other similar and trivial cause, may have laid them under water. The process of silicification proceeded gradually but steadily, and after they had there, in lapse of ages, become lapidified, the next outburst of volcanic matter overwhelmed them, broke them, partially enveloped, and bruised them, until long subsequent denudation once more brought them to light' (J. G. Medlicott, in Memoirs of the Geological Survey of India, vol. ii. Part II, pp. 200, 203, 204, 205, 216, as quoted in C. P. Gazetteer (1870), p. 435). The intertrappean fossils are all those of organisms which would occur in shallow fresh-water lakes or marshy ground.
Besides the author's friend and relative, Dr. H. H. Spry, Dr. Spilsbury contributed papers on the Nerbudda fossils to vols. iii, vi, viii, ix, x, and xiii of the J.A.S.B. Other writers also have treated of the subject, but it appears to be by no means fully worked out. James Prinsep, to whom no topic came amiss, discussed the Jubbulpore fossil bones in the volume in which Dr. Spry's paper appeared. Dr. Spry was the author of a work entitled Modern India: with Illustrations of the Resources and Capabilities of Hindustan (2 vols. 8vo, 1838). He became F.R.S.
201
The garrison is stated in the Gazetteer (1870) to consist of a European regiment of infantry, two batteries of European artillery, one native cavalry and one native infantry regiment. In 1893 it consisted of one battery of Royal Artillery, a detachment of British Infantry, a regiment of Bengal Cavalry, and a detachment of Bengal Infantry. According to the census of 1911, the population of Sāgar was 45,908.
202
The Banjāras, or Brinjāras, are a wandering tribe, principally employed as carriers of grain and salt on bullocks and cows. They used to form the transport service of the Moghal armies, and of the Company's forces at least as late as 1819. Their organization and customs are in many ways peculiar. The development of roads and railways has much diminished the importance of the tribe. A good account of it will be found in Balfour, Cyclopaedia of India, 3rd ed., 1885, s. v. 'Banjāra'. Dubois (Hindu Manners, &c., 3rd ed. (1906), p. 70) states that 'of all the castes of the Hindus, this particular one is acknowledged to be the most brutal'.
203
See note on human sacrifice, ante, Chapter 8, note 8.
204
In the Hoshangābād district of the Central Provinces. The sandstone formation here attains its highest development, and is known to geologists as the 'Mahādēo sandstones'. The new sanitarium of Pachmarhī is situated in these hills.
205
It has been long since suppressed.
206
Benares is the principal seat of the worship of Mahādēo (Siva), but his shrines are found everywhere
