FOSSILS. Copal occurs fossil along with lignite in the tertiary beds of the Malabar coast near Travancore, and on the east coast of Africa. It was first found in the blue clay at Highgate, near London ; it occurs also at Wochlow in 3loravia. It occurs in irregular pieces or small nodular masses. Its colour is yellowish or dull brown, nearly opaquo`; lustre resinous ; fracture con choidal ; sp. gr. 1.046. 1Vhen heated it yields an aromatic odour, arid melts into a limpid fluid ; it bum with a yellow flame and much smoke. When strongly heated in contact with the air, it is totally dissipated.
Fossils aro very abundant iu Southern Asia, all along the seaboard ; west of Pondicherry, and near Trichinopoly ; in Hyderabad tuid the Central Provinces ; in tho valley of the Nerbadda, in all the coal tracts, in the Siwalik Hills, and in Burma. Of those found in Burma by Mr. Oldham during his companionship with the embassy, he notes the following i—elephant tusk and lower jaw ; mastodon lower javr and molar tooth ; rhinoceros tooth ; tapir lower jaw ; deer ; sus or nierycopotamus, portion of cranium ; garial fragments ; bones of the pachydennata, rtuni nants, crocodile, tortoise, large tortoise.
Sir Proby T. Cantley carried on extensive researches in conjunction with l)r. Falconer, in the fossil remains of the Siwalik Hills. They presented to the 13ritisli Museum an extensive collection of fosail maminalia froin the Panjab Siwalik. At Cutchavelly, north of Trincomalee, is a bed of calcareous clay, in which recent shells and crustaceans, principally 3facrophthalmus and Scylla, aro found in a semi-fossilized state. The breccia at Jaffna and the arenaceous atrata in the western coast of 3laurtar and the neighlxmr hood of Gallo also contain recent shells, These fossils, when powdered, are used by the Arabs as a specific for diseases of the eye. The sali gramma which the saiva and vaishnava Hindus worship are fossil water-worn ammonites, found in part of the Gandak river in Northern India. The bin-lung, rori, and choolia stones found in the Nvhirlpools of tho Nerbadda and Chambal rivers are also worshipped by Hindus ; but they are not fossils, merely stones rounded by attri tion. Numerous fossils are obtained in the 13.sloti range and in the Shaikh Booden Hills, which may be considered offshoots froni the Salt Range. Fossils also occur in the Lagari, 3Iazari, and Lower Hills of the Sulimani range. A species of echinua is found fossil in the Lagari II ills,Imam Bakhsh Khan, and Debra Ghazi Khan, and the curioua trilinear markings on it are coinpared by the people to tho impression of a bird's foot, to which accordingly they attribute the origin of these fossils. The natives regard the larger fossils of the Mazari Hills as the petrified clothes of fifty betrothed vir gins, who, while bathing, Nvere surprised by their future husbands. They prayed Heaven to grant them D. covering ; in tuiswer to this the earth swallowed them up, and their clothes became stones. In the Panjab, a fossil encrinite is used
in medicine, under the name of Sang-i-yahudi, or Jew's stone ; and the Sa.ngcha, a nummulite from Dehra Ghazi Khan, and Sang-i-shad-naj, another nurnmulite, aro aLso used in medicine.
The Dehli system of hills include.s those of the Dehli, Gurgaon, and IIissar districts, also the Shekawati Ilills in Gurgaon, which ultimately become fused in the Aravalli range. Some of these hills are fossiliferous, others yield metals, the copper of Ilissar and Singhatm Gurgaon district belonging to this senes. In other por tions marbles and freestone are found ; and the Kalyana Hills of Datiri, now included in the Jhind territory, furnish elastic (micaceous) sand stone.
Spiti yields ammonites, astarte, belemnites, species of nucula, othoceros, pholadomya, rhyn chonella, and spirifor.
Tho Shih-yen of the Chinese are fossil shells, species of spirifer and rhynchonella, used medi cinally. Foasil wood is found abundantly iu Burma, in tho Kyen-dween, and Namloroong Fossil Nvood in the sandatones at 'Frivicary near Pondicherry, at tbe village of Verdur Valudayur, four miles E. of Trivicary, and other fosails sent to l3ritain by 3Ir. Kayo and 3Ir. Cunliffe, were described by Mr. Edward Forbes. The Trivicary fossil wood is embedded in coarse silicious con glomerate. The conglomerate iu Sind consists chiefly of the rolled fragments of the nummulito and other sub-adjacent rocks. In the cliff at 3Iinora, near Kuracheo, adjoining beds of oysters and other sea-shells, in situ, along with fossil wood like that of Cairo, and foqsils nearly identical with those of Central India, Burma, and the Siwalik range.
The fossils of Perim Island, in the Gulf of Cam bay, are embedded in a conglomerate, consisting mostly of rounded portions of trap in a clayey cement, and along with these are numberless fragments of fossil wood. The wood of Perim is nearly all rounded at the extremities, as if exposed to the action of running water, or of the breakers of the shore. It is, moreover, full of worm-holes, all emanating from its lower, and rising and radiating out towards its upper, surface, as if mineralized and hardened subsequently to its being placed in the position in which it is now found,—the perforations being effected while it was still soft.
Fossil wood is embedded in the sandstone in the desert between Cairo and Suez. The beds of sandstone vary in thickness from a few inches to 100 or 200 feet, are composed of rounded or ovoidal pebbles, nearly all more or less quartzose ; the Egyptian jasper being peculiarly abundant, and in many localities embedding silici fied trunks and fragments of trees, all sharply angular, and particularly abundant near Jabl Ahmar near Cairo and Wadi Ansan, about 8 hours' journey to the eastward. The fossils have been left on the surface by the disintegration of the sandstone.—Oldham in Yule's Embassy ; Hand book of Panjab ; Dr. J. G. Maleolmson; Smith.