f^ ■ T^ MIDNAPORE, ORISSA, &C. 253 



Of Orissa, the hilly part consists of a country dotted over with de- 

 tached peaks and small ranges, which become more sparse and scattered 

 to the east, being there separated from each other by plains of deep allu- 

 vium. Further to the west they are generally surrounded by laterite, 

 which rises to a considerable height above the alluvium ; the latter in the 

 more undulating country, although still covering considerable tracts 

 being confined to the neighbourhood of the streams. 



From these general facts, we may probably infer that the condition of 

 Pormer condition of ^^^'^ "^^^°^'^ district before the present deltas com- 

 ■^'^'"'^'* menced forming, was a region, or (if, as is highly 



probable, it were subaqueous) a sea-bottom, formed by an undulating 

 Insular character of surface of rock, from which arose numerous 

 ^''^^- rocky islands, large and small, themselves the 



relics of a former denudation. 



An exception to this prevailing insular arrangement exists in a mass 

 of low hills, west and south-west of the town of Cuttack. A small dis- 



. „ J . ^ . trict of sandstone occurs there, in which the hills 



Sandstone near Cut- 

 tack, not so. aj.g massed together in ranges, and seem to have 



undergone less marine denudation than has taken place in the adjoin- 

 ing areas of gneiss-rocks. On their western edge, they are escarped ; 

 to the east they sink down towards the plain. As the rocks composini" 

 these hills are comparatively soft, and the hills themselves of no great 

 elevation, it is evident that they have never been subjected to the same 

 marine action which has planed , away the mass of the gneiss of Bankee, 

 Khoordah and other districts in their immediate neighbourhood, leaving 

 only' a few [isolated peaks. Consequently, this sandstone itself must 

 be of later date j^than that denudation, unless, as is possible, but not 

 probable,^it was cotemporaneous. 



Within the area described above, the following classes of rocks are 

 found: — 



1. Hypogene and metamorphic rocks ; various forms of gneiss, and 



