630 APPENDIX. 



they all run very much into one another, and differ chiefly in 

 the various proportions of the same component, parts ; but 

 have a certain general similitude easily defined, and are found 

 in similar masses and strata. The black-stone of this place 

 is an amorphous hornblende,, containing minute but distinct 

 rhomboidal lamellar concretions of basaltin*. I imagine 

 that it is the same stone with that which by the ancients was 

 called basaltes, and which was by them sometimes formed 

 into images, as it is now by the idolaters of India. 



" The surface of the ridge is covered with large irregular 

 masses, where they have been long exposed to the air in the 

 natural process of decay, lose their angles first. When these 

 masses have thus become rounded, they decay in concentric 

 lamellae ; but where the rock itself is exposed to the air, it 

 separates into plates of various thicknesses, nearly vertical, 

 and running north and south. In the sound stone there is 

 not the smallest appearance of a slaty texture, and it splits 

 with wedges in all directions. The north end of the ridge is 

 the lowest, and has on its surface the largest masses. It is 

 there only that the natives have wrought it j they have 

 always contented themselves with splitting detached blocks, 

 and have never ventured on the solid rock, where much finer 

 pieces might be procured than has ever yet been obtained. 

 The Baswa, or bull, at Turiva-Cary, is the finest piece that I 

 have seen."f 



" Immediately north from the village is a quarry of Balla- 

 pitm, or potstone, which is used by the natives for making 

 small vessels ; and is so soft, that pencils are formed of it to 

 write upon books, which are made with cloth blackened and 

 stiffened with gum. Both the books and the neatness of the 

 writing are very inferior to the similar ones of the people of 

 Ava, who, in fact, are much farther advanced in the arts 

 than the Hindus of this country. This potstone separates 

 into large amorphous masses, each covered with a crust in a 



* Of Kinvan ; crystallised siderite. 

 f Vol.U. p. 61. 



