84 BUNDELCUND. 



Besides these examples, real and conjectural, of the rock-laterite 

 there are other extensive accumulations of iron 

 oxide ; for instance, in the bed of the Tons a few . 

 miles below where the Sohajee road crosses, there is " resting on the 

 sandstone and under the deep Gangetic clay, but 

 very distinct from both, an extensive layer of loose 

 coarse pisolitic iron from 1.0 feet and under; the grains are single or 

 ao-frlutinated in a yellow ochreous matrix, or coloured sandy clay ; the 

 upper part is hardened to stone and variously made up, sometimes a 

 conglomerate, pebbles of compact earthy hsematite and of subangular 

 fragments of pale clay, with quartz pebbles and sand, cemented by iron ; 

 this layer is sometimes represented by strings of concretions, a foot in dia- 

 meter, concentric layers of compact oxide becoming irregular and sub-an- 

 gular within, and generally hollow or with a little loose earth; elsewhere 

 this is entirely made up of small round iron concretions cemented by 

 iron." I did not notice that it had ever been worked for iron ; as far 

 as metallic proportion constitutes an ore, this would be productive, but 

 there may be some minute disqualifying ingredient ; the deposit how- 

 ever is a chance one, and this one small. No doubt much of the iron 

 in this layer came as ordinary transported matter, but formative mole- 

 cular action has been very active on the spot, as in those large, connected 

 concretions ; the claim of the rock to originality depends on how far, 

 whether all or any of the iron so employed was derived from a fresh 

 source : the fact of the constant proximity of the same material in the form 

 of pebbles makes one suspect a common origin, yet it is not easy to ima- 

 gine pebbles yielding the material by which they become cemented; nor is 

 this necessary, the breaking up of so many square miles of the rock- 

 laterite must have supplied iron oxide in many states of fitness ; or, it is 

 more simple to suppose this patch to be the remnant of a much greater 

 accumulation of the lateritic debris, from the decomposition of which may 

 have been slowly derived the active portion ofthis concretionary remnant. 



