1876.] V. Ball — On an Ancient Kitchen-3Iidden near CuttacJc. 121 



Executive Engineer to Ms own house in Cuttack where he kindly gave me 

 an opportunity of examining it, afterwards forwarding it to our Geological 

 Museum where it may now be seen by any one interested in the subject. 



Although I could detect no very sharply marked line of demarcation 

 between the portion of the block which contained the pottery and that 

 which was free from any trace of it, still it was apparent that, in so far as 

 this particular specimen was concerned, the layer of pottery was superficial 

 in other words was on not in the laterite. 



It was evident that to fully understand the relations, a visit to the 

 quarries was necessary, as, without seeing the rock in situ, no certain con- 

 clusion could be drawn. On reaching Chaudwar, the site of old Cuttack, 

 on the north bank of the Mahanadi, I found that throughout a considerable 

 portion of the area occupied by the quarries, the cuttings, down to the sur- 

 face of the laterite, disclosed sections of from one to three feet of a layer 

 of broken pottery and bones, in fact, the remams of an ancient Kitchen- 

 Midden. 



The base of this layer, the portion in contact with the laterite is fii-m- 

 ly cemented by ferruginous matter ; but higher in the sections the deposit 

 becomes looser and looser as it rises to the sui'face. 



In some cases the j)ottery is so fu-mly attached to the laterite that it 

 cannot be detached without fracture. 



It is not, I think, necessary to suj^pose that the laterite was in a soft 

 or only partially formed condition when the pottery was first thrown down 

 upon it. The percolation of waters from above, more or less charged with 

 organic matter, may have acted upon its upper sm-face in such a way as to 

 cause the solution and subsequent deposition of the ferruginous matter 

 which now includes and binds to the laterite the fragments of pottery. 



Had this been a hond-Jide case of the occm'rence of j)ottery in laterite 

 it would have had an interest very much greater than it can be now said to 

 possess. Although evidence, that of stone implements, has been found of 

 the existence of man while one of the forms of laterite was being deposited, 

 it still remains to be proved that man, so far advanced in knowledge of the 

 arts as to manufacture 25ottery, lived in India at so early a period. 



As to the age of the deposit, the date of the founding of Chaudwar, 

 the capital of Orissa, would only furnish a rough indication ; but even it is 

 not certainly known. Mr. Beames puts it at probably 350 A. D., other 

 authorities so far back as 23 A. D.* Either probably sufiiciently remote 

 for the completion of the operations giving rise to the phenomena above 

 described and which belong most distinctly to the, geologically speaking, 

 j)resent jDcriod. 



* See on this subject Indian Antiquarj', February 1876, p. 55. 



