APPENDIX. 153 



From Ahtur, M. Leschenault went on to Salem, which is about 

 11 or 12 Hems (29 miles) distant (VI, 337 ; IX, 252). 



He was unable to visit the high mountains, 10 but explored the 

 lower ones in the immediate neighbourhood of Salem. The slopes of 

 these are steep and the rocks generally well exposed ; these consist 

 of granite or syenite (or gneiss, with garnets and amphibole, IX, 

 355) in which amphibole and quartz form different bands (VI, 342,343). 



A mountain to the south-west [of Salem] is almost entirely com- 

 posed of rocks in which amphibole predominates, on the surface of 

 which coarse, opaque garnets are disposed in plates. 11 



town. The ore beds from which the native iron smelters obtain their iron-ore 

 lie to the south and south-west. Leschenault mentions that the iron is brought 

 to the town of Ahtur in the form of blooms, but the large slag heaps, now to be 

 seen near the bazar, show that smelting has also been carried on in the town itself. 

 In 1892 the remains of six furnaces were to be seen, whilst one was still at work. 

 The industry was confined to the pariahs (Rec, Geol. Surv., Ind., XXV, 148). 



10 The high mountains are presumably the Shevaroys (over 5,000 feet), the 

 Tainanda and Kalroyen malais (about 4,000 feet) to the north of the Salem-Ahtur 

 valley. 



11 The town of Salem stretches out to within a mile of the north-eastern foot 

 of this hill ; so its bearing would depend upon the part of the town from which 

 the observation was made. From the centre of the town (near which the town- 

 hall is situated) the hill is, more strictly speaking, W.-S.-W. of Salem. 

 Leschenault's bearings, however, are not quite correct; the three points which he 

 has given in the neighbourhood of Salem, for instance, are all turned too much 

 to the left : this hill is stated to be S.-W. instead of W.-S.-W., Kanjamalai 

 (see Note No. 19) is given as S.-S.-W. instead of S.-W. by W. or W.-S.-W., 

 and the " white elephant rock " as N.-VV., whereas one of these two large 

 masses of quartz is N.-N.-E. and the other N.-E. by N. of Salem town. 

 The small hill, which stands up abruptly W.-S.-W. of the town to a height 

 of about 300 feet, is a bare, steep-sided mass of rocks, elliptical in plan and 

 about £ mile long. It is principally composed of a medium to coarse-grained 

 massive rock with hypersthene, pale-green augite, brown basaltic hornblende, 

 plagioclase and red garnets which are badly fractured and sometimes attain 

 the size of a fist (No. 11*895). Similar rocks occur in Nagaramalai, N.-N.-W. 

 of Salem (Nos. g' 683, 9* 684, ii" 903) and other small hills in the neighbourhood. 

 These rocks belong to the division b of Lacroix's " pyroxenic and hornblendic 

 gneiss" (Rec, Geol. Surv., Ind., XXIV, 175; see also p. 21 of this paper). They 

 appear to stand out as great lenticular masses in the old (biotite) gneisses and are 

 generally associated with smaller lenses of pyroxenite (pyroxene-rocks). 



( 5' ) 



