AHAVALL1 SYSTP:M. 69 



ment of the pyroxene by tufted aggregates of tremolite can be 

 studied in some detail. 



Some of the more compact bands of the pyroxene-rock when 

 cut up into $ inch slabs, become slightly translucent in creamy, pale 

 green and occasional pinkish tints ( 3 2 4 - 4 ), so that the rock might be 

 useful as an ornamental .stone and for small carved objects. Its 

 hardness, 5 — 6, is such that it is just able to be worked with file or 

 other steel tool, a polished surface being diflicult to scratch. 



At one place, an isolated exposure of a few yards wide, in the 

 shingle of the river-bed just below the junc- 

 tion of the Meshva with the tributary-stream 

 almost exactly S.W. of Bainanvada, shows the change to amphibole 

 to be completely established, with the production of a layer, 1 to 2 

 inches thick, which in thin section shows matted tufts of fibres 

 and delicate prisms of colourless or very pale green tremolite or 

 actinolite— specimen No. £fo (12381 ; see PI. 11, fig. 6)— giving ex- 

 tinction angles up to 19° and typical basal sections of amphibole. 

 Its specific gravity is 2 96, hardness over 6, and it is infusible, 

 but becomes white and opaque before the blowpipe. The 1- to 2- 

 inch layer is bordered on one side by the white pyroxene and on 

 the other by a gradual passage into calcite. Its colour in the hand- 

 specimen is a rather pretty translucent green, and the rock when 

 polished has a handsome appearance. Its extremely tough, some- 

 what compact and translucent condition kept one on the lookout 

 for any jade-like variety. Nothing, however, sufficiently compact, 

 or sufficiently translucent, to merit the name of true jade (nephrite) 

 was found, although the associations, and the purity of the white 

 pyroxene and pale green amphibole, are very suggestive for a 

 further search in the neighbourhood for an occurrence of jade of 

 the true nephrite variety, such as the well-known jade from Kara- 

 kash in Khotan (M. 1374 — 12389). In certain places in the thin 

 section of £fo (12381) the basal cleavage of the pyroxene con- 

 tinues into the neighbouring amphibole, the fibres of the latter 

 being developed at right angles to this cleavage (see text fig. 11). 

 Calcite films are of common occurrence in this tremolite along 

 cleavage cracks. 



Specimen No. /^ (12382), from the right bank of the Meshva 



river 1 mile S.S.W. of Bamanvada, is a much 

 Calcito-tremolitc rock. . . .. . . . , 



more calcareous rock, composed ot calcite and 



tremolite ; the latter being present in a number of bunches and 



