HISLOP AND HUNTER NAGPUR, 381 



summit of the hill is about 250 feet above the level of the plain, 

 100 feet being gradual ascent through jungle, and the remainder 

 an abrupt wall of naked rock. The iron-ore is for the most part 

 specular, though many specimens possess polarity, and seem to be 

 magnetic. It is on the surface of the slope that it is most valuable ; 

 but the whole mass, from an unknown depth under ground to the 

 highest peak above it, is richly laden with metal. This single hill 

 might furnish iron for the construction of all the railroads that shall 

 ever be made in India, and with its abundance of fuel and cheapness 

 of labour, and convenience of situation, it is admirably adapted for an 

 export trade to every part of the country. But besides this locality, 

 there are others in the neighbourhood which could each contribute 

 an unlimited supply of the same indispensable metal. Among these 

 may be mentioned Lohara, Ogalpet, and Metapar, Bhaniipur, jMenda, 

 and Gunjawahi, which are all on the W. of the Wein Ganga ; and 

 at all of which places the ore seems to occur in quartz, and is some- 

 times granular, but for the most part compact. Unimportant crystals 

 of it are scattered through the pegmatite of the capital. Notwith- 

 standing that the specular ore is so abundant, there are many districts 

 on the north of those already named where the hydrous oxide, in 

 the shape of the heavier lumps of laterite, are selected for smelt- 

 ing by the poor natives, whose tools are anything but adapted for 

 contending with the hard masses of the metamorphic matrix or 

 gangue. 



Age of the Plutonic and Metamorphic Rocks. — These evidently 

 do not all belong to one and the same epoch. Col. Jenkins observes 

 that at Nayakund on the Pech, to the north of Nagpur, he met 

 with " a grey granite, composed chiefly of w^hitish felspar in very 

 large crystals," a mass of which '* was distinctly traversed three 

 or four times by granite-veins, accompanied by as many heaves." 

 The granite of the veins was smaller-grained and redder the more 

 recent it was, and, to the best of that officer's recollection, was desti- 

 tute of mica. Without, however, more extensive artificial sections 

 of the rocks in this neighbourhood than have ever been executed, I 

 fear it will be difficult to fix the respective ages of the different erup- 

 tions. A cursory view of the question would lead to the supposition 

 that the micaceous granite is more ancient than the pegmatite ; but, 

 in areas where both are presented in the vicinity of each other, the 

 soundness of this view may be questioned, or at all events it appears 

 to be impossible in the present state of the country to have it con- 

 firmed. The pegmatite of Nagpur city, which we have said is 

 associated with gneiss, mica-schist, and quartz with mica and with 

 schorl, is evidently a very recent eruption, for it has not only con- 

 verted much of the very higiiest member of the Jurassic sandstone 

 into gneiss, but it has completely upheaved it. That the eruption, 

 therefore, was posterior to that formation, there cannot be the slightest 

 doubt. But it has sometimes occurred to me, though the observa- 

 tions of the most eminent Indian geologists are opposed to the thought, 

 that this pegmatitic outburst may be subsequent even to our trap. 



The section (fig. 1) at page 350 may throw some light on this 



