932 Notes, principallg Geological, on the [No. 130. 



the quartz veins intersecting the granite, pass into hornstone with 

 a splintery fracture. The granite is crystalline, and contains dark mica 

 in scales ; hornblende in small crystals ; foliated reddish felspar ; and 

 greyish quartz in minute angular fragments. Hematitic iron ore exists 

 largely near the bed of quartz : the slope of the ridge towards Umaluti 

 is strewn with the slag and scoriae of the furnaces formerly used for 

 smelting it. The Hindus, I am informed, gave them up many years 

 ago, owing to the exactions of their Mahomedan rulers. The agricul- 

 tural produce of the soil is chiefly juari, cotton, and a little wheat ; being 

 at a distance from the river, it is indifferently watered ; depending on 

 the dews, springs, and the periodical rains. The majority of the springs 

 about Tawurghirry are brackish — the formation granite, with reddish 

 felspar, in clustered blocks, generally not rising above twenty or thirty 

 feet from the surface. The soil around the town is reddish, arising 

 from alluvium brought down the slopes of the ridge, and the disintegra- 

 tion of the granite rocks in the vicinity. It produces good crops of 

 juari. 



A little more than a mile N.W. from Tawurghirry, chlorite slate 

 occurs in the bed of a rivulet in nearly vertical laminae, interseamed 

 with a reddish subcrystalline felspar, having a general direction of E. 10 

 S. though contorted and waving at various points : the general dip is 

 to the N. About two miles farther on, a trap dyke intersects the schis- 

 tose beds, running nearly East and West, and decomposes into a red- 

 dish brown soil. Three miles farther, near Idlapur, the chlorite, mica, 

 and micaceous hornblende schists appear in the form of low hills, 

 having an irregular direction ; but which approaches that of the laminae 

 of the schists themselves. The chlorite schist predominates, and losing 

 its chlorite, passes into both a ferruginous and a soft purplish shale, or 

 slate clay, containing much felspar in a decomposing state. The sum- 

 mits of two or three of these hills were crested with a jaspery clay iron- 

 stone, with cherty quartz in parallel laminae. A smoke-coloured vesi- 

 cular quartz is found veining the chloritic slate, and a reddish tough 

 subcrystalline kanker is seen in the hollows and sides- of the hills. 

 Large masses occur in the road side, imbedding small nodules of hemati- 

 tic iron ore, which is profusely scattered in the bed of the rivulets. At 

 Sassenhal, in the bed of a nullah, I found an angular block of a compact 

 rock of a light .ochreous yellow colour, having cavities lined with minute 



