of the Southern Mdfiratta Country. 109 



which I found specimens of copper-green. It has sometimes a 

 greenish colour, and a blue variety is occasionally associated 

 with it, which very much resembles roofing slate ; but has sel- 

 dom its hardness. It is also associated, in some places, with a 

 rock closely resembling the greywacke slate of the south of 

 Scotland. 



The red and white varieties of the clay-slate occur in very 

 considerable abundance in these districts. They extend for se- 

 veral miles around Darwar, where they are associated with 

 quartz rock. They are found a little to the north of Kul- 

 ladghee ; and I met with them also near Holvully in Soonda. 

 They may be said generally to consist of felspar, more or less 

 coloured with iron, and having a loose aggregation. Some va- 

 rieties, however, are intimately mixed with quartzy particles ; 

 which gives them a great degree of hardness ; and they thus 

 gradually pass into the quartz rock with which they are asso- 

 ciated. The white variety is frequently so pure, that, in hand 

 specimens, it would at once be pronounced to be a pure porce- 

 lain earth. This variety is found in great abundance at Dar- 

 war ; and it might, I have no doubt, be very advantageously 

 quarried for the purpose of being manufactured into porcelain 

 ware. It has an obscure slaty structure. The red varieties 

 with which it is associated, are distinctly slaty. There is a gra- 

 dual transition from the purest white kind, to those having a 

 deep red or brown colour. A light purplish colour is also some- 

 times met with. 



At Darwar, these rocks are distinctly stratified. The strata 

 are nearly vertical ; and their direction is north-west and south<- 

 east. No single variety forms a continuous bed of any ex- 

 tent; but, on the contrary, several varieties are often found 

 within a very short distance of each other, in the same stratum ; 

 and they are almost always traversed by thin veins of a brown 

 quartz. In addition to the strata seams, these rocks are generally 

 traversed by other parallel seams, which cross the strata, and 

 thus, in some instances^ give rise to large rhomboidal masses. So 

 parallel and distinct are these transverse seams, which are seen in 

 some of the large wells at Darwar, that they might, on a super- 

 ficial view, be readily mistaken for the true stratification. 



