KHASI HILLS. Ill 



flanks of Shillong hill and stretch thence by Poinrong to Coote, Mooshai 

 and Suneassa ; and into the Jynteah hills. 



Throughout this area, they maintain, on the whole, a tolerably constant 

 character ; they are greatly contorted in every direction, these con- 

 tortions affecting every variety of rock. In the midst of so much dis- 

 turbance it is difficult to say that the rocks have any prevailing direction 

 or dip, although they appear to have a tendency to great rolls ; the 

 inclination of the sides of these curves trending to the North and South, 

 or to a little "West of North and East of South. 



In the immediate vicinity of Cherra Poonjee, these rocks are well 

 ^ . , , ,. seen in the de?p glens which surround the station. 



Gneiss, ic, near station ^ =■ " > 



of Cherra. ^^^j^ from the lower parts of which the thick cover- 



ing of the more recent sandstones has been denuded. In Cherra valley, 

 we find in the bed of the Temshung river alternating beds of quartzose 

 slates, quartz-rock, and gneiss, dipping at very high angles, and much 

 disturbed. They form in many places bold cliffs along the banks of the 

 stream. Associated with these and traversing them in veins is a fine- 

 grained granite of nearly homogeneous texture, itself cut up by numer- 

 ous veins of a coarsely crystalline and highly felspathic porphyritic 

 granite. These veins are of all sizes, and some of them are in too orreat 

 mass to be looked upon as mere cotemporaneous veins, or segregated 

 masses, but look like the results of a second intrusion of molten rock 

 into the fissures of the previouslj' indurated mass. Others are small and 

 ramifying, and consist chiefly of largely crj'stalline felspar of a deep 

 and beautiful flesh-red colour, and of black mica ; the latter occasionally 

 in crystals measuring an inch across. Zircon occurs in these veins. 



With the gneissose and slaty beds we find occasional la^'ers of horn- 

 blendic rocks associated. The same series con- 



Hornblendic rocks. . ... . . 



tmues witliout mtermission up to the base of the 

 conglomerates, whicli, on the flanks of the glen, rest nearly horizontally 

 on these rocks. 



