58 Geological features of Zillah Behar. [No. 169. 



comes covered with the Mimosa catechu, a few ebony trees and an 

 abundance of saloogunje trees. The hills are clothed with the fragrant 

 rhousa grass, from which a powerful spirit is extracted, so beneficial in 

 rheumatism, and known in Malwa as " Grass oil." The surface of the 

 country is undulating, the soil tinged with bright yellow and red hues, 

 the effects of the oxide of iron, which ore is found in its soil. The hills 

 are low towards the north, and higher to the south ; exceedingly steep 

 to the south, and sloping away gradually to the north. The long range of 

 hills skirting the Sone river, are so steep to the south that a stone may 

 be jerked from the summit to the base, but on the north the termination 

 of their base is a mile removed from the plumb-line of their crest. Ten 

 or fifteen miles south of the Sone river, on the table land of Oontaree, 

 iron ore is collected and smelted by the Aghurreeas. Immediately under 

 the ruined fort of Srinugger, the waters of the Sone have denuded a 

 series of nearly vertical strata of hornstone, arranged in narrow serpen- 

 tine ribbons ; this hornstone again appears about half a mile down the 

 river, at Darehdeh, and has the appearance of having been fused, being 

 of a dark pitchy hue, smooth, rounded, sonorous when struck, difficult 

 of fracture, and heavy. A belt of the same rock appears in the bed of 

 the Sone jutting out from the Shahabad or north side, about two miles 

 above Darehdeh : the rock at this spot has exactly the same burnt 

 appearance. Embedded in this hornstone are found masses of a hard 

 claystone of a bright red colour, also common amongst the pebbles of 

 the river, which pebbles generally consist of rounded pieces of agate, 

 hornstone or quartz, possessing but little beauty or variety. The rocks 

 at this spot, projecting more than half-way across the stream of the 

 Sone, create rapids of about six feet fall in a quarter of a mile. At a 

 village named Phoolwurreea, about four miles inland from the Sone, 

 there is a spring of good water. At this spot a fair is held during the 

 months of Kartik and Chait. At a spot (marked S.) in the sandstone a 

 small quantity of alum is manufactured from alum slate, but by what 

 process, I could not learn. Specimens of the slate were sent marked 359. 

 The natives call this sulphate of alumina, silajeet : it is the same sub- 

 stance as that brought from Nepal, and sold under the same name at 

 the enormous price of one rupee the tola. The sandstone, on the eastern 

 and western banks of the Koel river, is similar to that in which are 

 bituated the Rajhurrah coal mines, eighteen miles from the Behar 



