178 ON ORISSA PROPER 



plains, where it forms gently swelling rocky elevations, but never rises into 

 hills ; sometimes it is disposed in the manner of flat terraces of considerable 

 dimensions which look as if they had been constructed with much labour 

 and skill. The composition and aspect of the Cuttack iron clay are very 

 remarkable, from the innumerable pores and amygdaloidal cavities which it 

 contains, filled with white and yellow lithomarge, and from the quantities of 

 iron ore pebbles and fragments of quartz imbedded in it. By far the most in- 

 teresting circumstance however connected with it is, its complete and inti- 

 mate mixture with the granite, which has been traced in several instances, 

 and specimens of which are in my possession, exhibiting the one rock en- 

 tirely invested by the other, though it is not easy to pronounce which is the 

 inclosing substance. We have here an instance of a rock of the Werne- 

 rian newest Flcetz trap formation, resting upon the oldest primitive rock and 

 in actual junction with it. The granite, at the place where the specimens 

 were principally collected, appears to burst through an immense bed of the 

 laterite, rising abruptly at a considerable angle. Numerous broken frag- 



ments are strewed all around the line of junction, and in some specimens the 

 two rocks are so mixed together as to form a sort of coarse breccia or ra- 

 ther conglomerate. 



South of the Mahanadi, in the country of Khurda a few isolated hills 

 of white and variegated sandstone occur, curiously interspersed among the 

 granitic ones. An indurated white lithomarge is found in company with 

 them from which the natives prepare a white wash to ornament their houses. 



In the estates of Keonjher, Nilgiri, and Moherbenj, which constitute 

 the northernmost portion of the hilly division of the Cuttack province, the 

 half decomposed granite above described passes into fine white granite and 

 gneiss rocks containing micaceous hornblende as a constituent part, ma- 

 ny of which, as I am informed, differ little in composition and general ap- 

 pearance from specimens collected on the highest accessible summits of 

 the Himalaya mountains. The whole of the region now adverted to, fur- 



nishes a great variety of interesting and valuable mineral productions? and 



