1852.] The Kurrukpoor Hills. 205 



the whole bed dipping to the south 45°, direction of strata S. W. N. E, 

 The asbestos pounded feels soft and is slightly fibrous ; associated with 

 the asbestos is indurated talc, in amorphous masses, it writes upon glass, 

 which writing is invisible until breathed upon. 



At the southern foot of the hill is a bed of chlorite and hornblende 

 schists, but no where possessing fissility sufficient to render the slates 

 of any use. On the north-western side of the hill I found a conglo- 

 merate of rolled pieces of asbestos, chlorite, hornblende, quartz and 

 hornstone united with a calcareous cement, the bed extending for thirty 

 or forty yards along the base of the hill. 



Leaving Peerpuharee hill and proceeding in a southerly direction 

 across a cultivated plain towards the hills, the same quartz is again 

 met with, over which a red clayey and gravelly soil containing nodules 

 of iron ore is thinly strewed ; it is in this plain that the Seetakoond 

 hot springs take their rise from a group of hornstone rocks, barren and 

 sterile in appearance. The temperature of the spring is 140° and 

 seldom varies. 



Six miles from Peerpuharee in a direct southerly direction, is a 

 small fault in the hills which serves as a ghat or passage through the 

 range, the name of the gap is " Dusdooar" and is in ribbon claystone, 

 wedged in between quartz and hornstone ; from this handsome stone 

 which exactly resembles unbaked and unsilicified ribbon jasper, was 

 built the greater portion of the Monghyr Fort, and considering its 

 great softness it is wonderful how it has lasted so well and so long as 

 it has done ; its colors are exceedingly lively and are pearl- blue, brown- 

 red, yellow, bright-red, and lavender-blue ; the fracture is dull earthy, 

 with glimmering particles, probably silvery mica, but much too small to 

 be discernible even under a powerful lens ; this claystone passes into 

 massive asbestos. 



In the small Kewar Kole valley containing the Rishikoond hot 

 springs, is a curious cleft in the hornstone rocks twenty-five feet in 

 width forming a series of cascades. The strata dip 2° to the north. 

 Higher up the valley large masses of hornblende appear, evidently be- 

 longing to the same strata quarried on the opposite side of the hill at 

 Puttur Khan. Quantities of iron ore lie scattered about the small 

 valley, but greatly hidden by the luxuriant foliage of the elegant 

 trumpet-flowered Hastingsii which was in full blossom in March, the 

 period of our visiting the spot. 



2 d 2 



