July, 1846.] Proceedings of the Asiatic Society. Ixi 



Report of the Curator Museum Economic Geology and Mineralogical and Geolo- 

 gical Department. 

 Geological and Mineralogical Department. 



The specimens and shells announced by Lieutenant Sherwill from the fresh water 

 deposit near Benares have reached us and are on the table. 

 Economic Geology. 



Mr. J. Ellis, of the Commissariat Department, has presented us with a bag of the 

 remarkable gem-sand of the Ava river. I learn from the jewellers that this is often 

 brought to Calcutta and sold in large bags at very low rates, the greater part of 

 stones being utterly valueless for them, though really gems. It appears to con- 

 tain a numerous variety, some crystallised, but most fragments or rolled crystals of 

 every thing, from spinelle rubies, with probably sapphires, eorundums, cinnamon 

 stones, beryls, agates, garnets, &c, down to smoky quartz ; but it is a long labour 

 to find a specimen worth putting aside, and perfectly useless to go through the labour 

 of discriminating them till the whole is picked. It is in fact more curious as a 

 mixture than separate specimens would generally be, 



I present two reports, one on the Cerium ore sent by Captain Newbold, and the 

 other on the ore of Antimonial Galena forwarded by Colonel Ouseley from Hisato, 

 Chota Nagpore. 



The following is an extract from a letter from Lieut. Blagrave, Scinde, to whom 

 I had written again on the subject of the sulphur deposit of Kurrachee, reported 

 upon to Government in September, 1843, but of which we had heard nothing : — 



" I sent off three boxes of fossils the other day to you, in one of which were 

 specimens from the sulphur bed at Kurrachee, but which I fear will not turn out so 

 good as expected. The report that was sent in by the Bombay Government gives a 

 percentage cf 30 or 40 per cent. I forget exactly the quantity stated, and by a trial 

 made at Kurrachee with very indifferent means the re-ult was little above 30 

 per cent. Will you kindly have the different specimens that I have sent analyzed, 

 and let me know the exact quantity of sulphur yielded by each. I wrote, I think, on 

 each, the different depths at which each was found. Among the specimens sent there 

 are lamps of mould filled with a white flaky substance, I should like to know what 

 it is. I have just seen the sulphur springs at Luckee, and collected a whole basket 

 full of specimens, of which I will send you samples when I have more leisure. The 

 springs are situated among, I think you would call them, limestone rocks, but 

 that you will be able to judge of from the specimens of the rocks when they reach 

 you. I shall try also to obtain a sketch of them for you, as the strata are curiously 

 jumbled together ; the bed of the streams from the springs are covered with bright 

 green and red (I first thought deposits) but afterwards found that the green was a 

 sort of lichen, and the red, small animalculse. Some of the stones are covered with 

 crystals of sulphur and some with melted yellow sulphur ; the temperature of the 

 highest spring is only 105° and the lowest 102°, at least that was what it stood at 

 when I visited them. The stones near and in the water courses are covered with a 



