310 KHASIA MOUNTAINS. Chap. XXX. 



Kala-panee river, still a clear stream, the bed of which is 

 comparatively superficial : the rocks consist of a little basalt 

 and much sandstone, striking east by north, and dipping 

 north by west. The Boga-panee is next reached, flowing in 

 a shallow valley, about 200 feet below the general ievel 

 of the hills, which are grassy and treeless. The river * 

 is thirty yards across, shallow and turbid; its bed is 

 granite, and beyond it scattered stunted pines are met 

 with ; a tree which seems to avoid the sandstone. In the 

 evening we arrived at Nonkreem, a large village in a broad 

 marshy valley, where we procured accommodation with 

 some difficulty, the people being by no means civil, and 

 the Rajah, Sing Manuk, holding himself independent of 

 the British Government. 



Atmospheric denudation and weathering have produced 

 remarkable effects on the lower part of the Nonkreem 

 valley, which is blocked up by a pine-crested hill, 200 

 feet high, entirely formed. of round blocks of granite, 

 heaped up so as to resemble an old moraine ; but like 

 the Nunklow boulders, these are not arranged as if by 

 glacial action. The granite is micaceous, and usually very 

 soft, decomposing into a coarse reddish sand, that colours 

 the Boga-panee. To procure the iron-sand, which is 

 disseminated through it, the natives conduct water over 

 the beds of granite sand, and as the lighter particles are 

 washed away, the remainder is removed to troughs, where 

 the separation of the ore is completed. The smelting is 

 very rudely carried on in charcoal fires, blown by enormous 

 double-action bellows, worked by tw T o persons, who stand 

 on the machine, raising the flaps with their hands, and ex- 

 panding them with their feet, as shown in the cut at p. 312. 



The fall of this river, between this elevation (which may be considered that 

 of its source) and Chela, is about 5,500 feet. 



