106 Notes on Geological Specimens from [Fkb. 



colour ; but good specimens could not be removed. Veins of quartz also 

 occur at Balcondah, with turbid milky spots, as if altered by heat, and 

 large imbedded crystals, (No. 42.) 



* Sichel Hills ; locally known as the Nirmul range. 



Nirmul is surrounded by granite hills, containing much hornblende 

 and a little schorl ; and the summits of some of them appear to resem- 

 ble the greenstone of Jakrampilly, but they were not examined. After 

 passing some small ranges of hills, the ascent of the Nirmul chain 

 commences five or six miles north of the town, and the road continues 

 amongst lofty hills covered with forest, by a succession of ascents and 

 descents, for 40 miles, when it descends by the Muklegandy ghat to 

 the town of Eidlabad, nearly on the level of the flat country of Berar. 



The southern ascent of Nirmul ghat, is the most deep and difficult, 

 the hills not rising in a series of terraces as they do to the north ; yet 

 it is not easy to ascertain the precise direction of the part of the hill 

 range over which this pass leads, on account of the projecting spurs 

 and low hills at their base, the thick forest with which it is covered, 

 and from its having something of a curved form. The general direc- 

 tion is from W. N. W. to E. S. E., which corresponds with that of 

 the Sichil range, to which these hills belong, and which extends 

 from the great lake water of Lonar to the neighbourhood of Munga- 

 pett, where the silicious fossil wood (marked " fossil wood," Munga- 

 pett), was found in 1828. On approaching the hills, the granite is 

 observed to become soft, and to decompose rapidly. In the bed of a 

 stream it has a remarkable concentric appearance, which was also ob- 

 served in the centre of the hills south of Thitnoor, where it is covered 

 by trap, on which fossils were found. No schistose rock was found 

 here, but 20 miles to the east of Nirmul, and a few miles south of the 

 mountains, hornblende slate occurs on the granite, and along with it the 

 magnetic iron ore described by Voysey in the Journal of the Asiatic 

 Society, vol. II. It is not a sand, as might be inferred from his de- 

 scription ; but the grains of iron are either mixed with the hornblende 

 or occur in a sandstone-looking gneiss, from which the hornblende had 

 disappeared. Specimens of the rock, which I saw dug up, and of the 

 sand formed by pounding it on protruding masses of granite, are for- 

 warded. The softer pieces were at once reduced to powder, while the 

 harder were first roasted ; and the one was then easily separated by 

 washing in small shelving hollows dug in the clay. It is then melted, 

 and its quality said to be improved by using teak branches : the iron 

 is soft, but part is used in the mixture from which wootz steel is form- 

 ed. The strata of the schists have been broken and elevated, but the 



* Also called " Shesha." 



