Lieut.-Colonel Sykes on a portion of Dukhun. 421 



cannot trace them to such a source, not having seen strata of compact lime- 

 stone, properly so called, in the Dukhun. The only specimen of compact 

 limestone met with by me was in the bed of the Beema river near Pundur- 

 poor. It was an insulated, amorphous, gray mass, four or five feet in dia- 

 meter. I looked upon it as an aggregation of the pulverulent particles of 

 the lime disseminated in the neighbouring banks. A specimen of it ac- 

 companies this paper. 



Crystalline Limestone. 



Lime in a crystalline state occurs only as an imbedded mineral in the 

 amygdaloidal strata, in quartz geodes, and in the nucleus or compact part 

 of masses of mesotype or stilbite. It is rare compared with the precedino- 

 varieties. 



Loose Stones. 



Another feature of Dukhun is the occurrence of immense quantities 

 of loose basalt stones, as if showered upon the land ; also masses of rock 

 heaped and piled into mounds as if by the labour of man. Their partial 

 distribution is not less remarkable than their abundance. For the most part, 

 the stones have a disposition to a geometrical form, and it is by no means 

 rare to meet with prisms of three or four sides and cubes almost perfect: 

 stones with one or two perfect planes are very common. Their texture is 

 close-grained and the colour verging to black. 



At Dehwuree, Hungawaree, Behloondee, Kothool, and Dytneh in the Ahmednuggur Collectorate, 

 they are very abundant. At the last place they cover fields several acres in extent, so thickly 

 that the black fertile soil on which they rest is not discoverable : they vary from an ounce to 

 several pounds in weight. Amongst these I picked up a perfect square prism. In neighbouring 

 fields, most unaccountably, there is not a stone to be seen : patches of sheet rock occur in their 

 vicinity. Other localities are the top of the Neem Durra Ghat near Ahmednuggur; the junction 

 of the Beema and Seena rivers below Mundroop ; right bank of the Seena at Kurmaleh ; between 

 Kurjut and Meerujgaon ; and generally it may be stated that the precipitous slopes of the low 

 table-lands of the Desh (open or flat country) are very strong and rocky. For ten miles between 

 Jeetee and Soagaon, Ahmednuggur Collectorate, the fields, and even the road, are so thickly 

 strewn with large basalt stones as to render cultivation difficult and travelling penible. 



Rocky Heaps. 



The singular heaps of rocks and stones above noticed occur at Kanoor, 

 Patus, Kheir, between Kurjut and Meerujgaon, and at other places in the 

 Desh, but not in the Mawals, or hilly tracts of the Ghats. The heaps are 

 from twenty to seventy feet in diameter, and the same in height : when com- 

 posed of rocky masses without small stones, blocks of three or four feet in dia- 



3 I 2 



