2G6 MIDNAPORE, OEISSA, &C. 



■ Passing over the great flats of clay and sandy clay wliicli extend for 



^, . , , , r many miles to the west of the river Hooglv into 

 Physical character ot •' ° - 



surface. Bancoorah, the ground gradually becomes more 



broken, more elevated, and at the same time less cultivated. For the 

 most part these broken swells are covered by low coppice jungle, the 

 hereditary abode of charcoal-burners, whose labours have gradually 

 removed every thing which could be called a tree, and left only the stumps 

 and young shoots where formerly noble sal trees flourished. Around 

 the few villages here and there, some large trees still remain, indices of 

 what was, years since, the condition of almost all tliis country. The 

 whole surface is composed of long lOw swelling ridges of this character, 

 interrupted by irregular bays and spits of the more recent sandy and 

 kunkury alluvium which stretch into the higher grounds of the ferru- 

 ginous gravels and sands, and form strij^es of cultivation separating the 

 jungles. This character becomes more marked along the lines of the 

 larger streams, each of which has its own river-alluvial deposits. In 

 Bancoorah these streams are, as compared with the area, rriore numerous 

 than further south, and the outline of the lateritic deposits becomes 

 therefore more irregular and less continuous. (See map). 



In the small map, given herewith, no attempt has been made to se- 

 parate the true massive laterite, that which occurs 

 in hard massive beds and blocks, from the laterite 

 gravels, which have all the appearance of being the result of the de- 

 composition and re-arrangement of this more massive laterite. These 

 ferruginous gravels 'in some places seem to pass by almost imperceptible 

 changes into the solid laterite, and in a few instances have become re- 

 cemented into a mass not easily distinguished from 

 Varieties of. ^^^^^ ^_^^j_^ ^^^ which, in fact, has been and 



would be called laterite ; while on the other hand they pass by equally 

 insensible gradation into a coarse sandy clay containing only a few of 

 the ferruginous nodules of the laterite sparsely disseminated and barely 



