534 Scientific Proceedings, Royal Dublin Society. 
1. CENTRAL PRovinces.—In the extensive region known as the 
Central Provinces, and throughout a considerable portion of 
which metamorphic rocks prevail, gold-bearing rocks and their 
natural product, auriferous sands, are probably widely dis- 
tributed ; but on this subject but little has been published, and 
at the present moment I am only able to refer to a paper by 
Colonel Ouseley,* and to my own notes which apply to the district 
of Sambalpur, where I made inquiries regarding gold in connexion 
with those which I instituted in the same locality in reference to 
diamonds. 
The following remarks I have already published,} but I repro- 
duce them here only slightly modified, as they serve to epitomize 
all that is at present known on the subject. 
Gold in all probability occurs pretty generally throughout 
those portions of the district of Sambalpur, in which metamorphic 
rocks prevail. So far as I have been able to gather from personal 
observation, the washers coufine themselves to the beds of the 
Mahanadi and Ebe; but in the rains they are said to leave the 
larger rivers and wash in the small jungle-streams. 
In the Ebe, below Tahood,] saw a party of gold-washers 
encamped on the sand. The places where they were actually 
washing were within the area occupied by rocks of Talchir (Per- 
mio-triassic) age; but whether the gold was proximately derived 
from them, or had been brought down by the river, as is possible, 
from the metamorphic rocks a short distance higher up, I am 
unable to say. 
There is, of course, no prumd facie improbability in the Talchir 
rocks containing gold. On the contrary, the boulder-bed, in- 
cluding as it does such a large proportion of materials directly 
derived from the metamorphic rocks, might naturally be expected 
to contain gold. In this connexion it may be mentioned that in 
Australia, a conglomerate bed of carboniferous age has been found 
to be auriferous,{ and the same has been recorded in Nova Scotia.§ 
As to the methods employed by, and the earnings of, the gold- 
washers, the remarks about to be made on the gold of Singbhum 
apply equally to Sambalpur, and need not be anticipated here. 
* “Journal Asiatic Society of Bengal,” 1839, Vol. VIII. 
t “Records of the Geological Survey of India,” Vol. X., p. 190; and ‘‘ Jungle Life in 
India,” p. 529. 
t Vide “‘ Geol. Mag.,” 1877, p. 286. § “Jour. Geol. Soc.,” Vol. XXXVI, p. 318. 
