J 96 A few Remarks on the Rangoon Laterite. [No. 2. 



A few Remarks on the subject of the Laterite found near Rangoon. — 

 By Capt. C. B. Young. Bengal Engineers. 



Sib, — I take the liberty of troubling you with a few remarks on 

 the subject of the Laterite which abounds in the neighbourhood of 

 Eangoon. 



The hilly country of upper Ava ceases with the promontory of 

 Kyouktaran near Lunzay below Prome, and from that to the sea, 

 the Irrawaddy flows through a rich alluvial Delta. 



Unlike that of the Ganges, however, this is varied by occasional 

 rising eminences and ridges, and upon one of these the great Pagoda 

 of Eangoon is situated, the platform of which is 160 feet above the 

 river, the Pagoda itself rising 320 feet above that again. 



These eminences are chiefly, if not entirely, composed of Laterite. 

 The lower plain country consists of clay and sand ; each occasionally 

 predominating, and the former sometimes of a very rich aluminous 

 kind like pipe-clay. (Vide specimens.) The surface soil is always 

 clayey or alluvial, but in making cuttings, as in digging tanks or for 

 roads, it is usual to find the soil at a small depth becoming gritty or 

 gravelly. On examination, this is found to arise from numerous 

 concretions, similar to kunkur, some of a brick-red, some of a black, 

 colour. In some places the red predominate, in others the black, 

 forming strata running in waving directions though the soil ; and the 

 colours are exhibited owing to the nodules being cut through by the 

 tool in the act of digging. 



The nodules themselves when picked out of the earth are aggrega- 

 tions of the local coloured clay, round nuclei of the black matter in the 

 centre, and around that the redder material ; both having strongly the 

 appearance of owing their origin to an infusion of iron in the soil. 



Deeper down the nodules speedily become more numerous, until 

 at last the whole, from the nodules joining and adhering tolerably 

 firmly together, leaving at the same time numerous interstices irre- 

 gularly shaped between them, assumes the appearance of a nodular 

 clay iron-stone, aetites, or, as it has been called, an iron bound 

 breccia. In this shape it may be dug out and handled in lumps or 

 masses, but these may be readily broken with the hammer, or even 

 by hand. In a more advanced state, it becomes still more compact 



