444 On Kunker formations, with Specimens. QNo. 1G2. 



trap, and no limestones are known, the springs are so impregnated with 

 lime, taken up in their passage through the clay stratum, as to frost 

 the glass of the windows splashed in moistening tatties. This frost 

 work is as complete as that produced by fluoric acid. The smaller 

 streams exhibit the same impregnation ; and wherever they fall over a 

 precipice, huge masses of Tufa are deposited by them on the yearly 

 growth of lichens upon the brink. 



I have seen many such masses of several hundred tons weight, and 

 one of these, torn from the precipice apparently by its own gravity, 

 was quarried for many years for the supply of the finer lime used at 

 Mhow in Malwa, and is yet I believe unexhausted. 



The obstructions of the human viscera so common in Malwa and 

 Nimaur, I attribute to the action of the lime thus held in solution 

 by the water. Tufa water is a well known poison in Italy. It saps the 

 digestion, and causes gradual decay without any perceptible violence. 

 The Italians observing this, fancy that it petrifies the vitals. 



But one of the most remarkable examples of the action of water upon 

 lime is observable in the mausoleum of Hoshungh Shah Ghorie, in 

 Maandoo, Malwa. This building is faced within and without with a 

 coarse granulated limestone from the Nerbudda, passing current in those 

 parts for marble. From long neglect, Peepul and Dhamun trees have 

 penetrated with their finer roots the substance of the dome, so that 

 water filters through copiously during the monsoon, and, being preserved 

 in small cavities, continues to drop down, long afterwards. This water 

 in its passage through the mortar of the roof, takes up a certain quantity 

 of lime, which it again deposits in the interior lining of the dome in long 

 stalactitic pendants. 



This fact was observed in the days of Ferishta the historian, for he says 

 regarding it, (I quote from memory) — " People who are rather devout 

 than learned, think that the very marble weeps above the tomb of Ho- 

 shungh Shah. But we, who are above such puerilities, easily compre- 

 hend, how wind penetrating into the substance of the stone becomes 

 there condensed into water." 



4, Harrington Street, \Zth March, 1845. J. Abbott. 



Note.— The large masses are from confluent strata, below Allahabad. These strata 

 from three to five feet thick are encrusted above with such large loose masses as these. 

 One, however, is part of a slab of confluent Kunker, broken by me.— J, A. 



