THE SAGAR DISTRICT. 63 



ragged perpendicular escarpment, and of course the rock is exposed from 

 the base to the summit. Oftener there is a very easy slope, both at the 

 ends and along the sides from the edge of the trap, that is the base of 

 the hill, to within twenty or thirty feet of the top ; — from this the rock 

 continues upwards precipitous and rugged, and the crest is gained only 

 after difficulty and search for particular points. The matter that gives 

 the slopes described, is merely and exclusively the debris of the parent 

 rock ; and the vegetation, which clothes the surface, springs up be- 

 tween the fragments, time and the elements having worn off matter from 

 those fragments, and so generated something of a soil beneath them. 



I might have mentioned before that the principal quartzose sand- 

 stone, that which I have described, when first fractured, and brought from 

 the quarry, is of a beautiful sky blue, which soon by exposure turns to 

 such as the specimens shew it, a salmon color or flesh color, or slight mo- 

 difications of these. The slates of Satgerh, if they split off less than two 

 inches and a half thick, are too friable and are thrown aside as waste. 

 Some of the quarries are already abandoned, and the whole appear to have 

 been commenced about half way up the hill, on the crest of the more slop- 

 ing part, at the eastern end, and thence along both sides to some distance. 

 A slow fire of stout sticks of green-wood, is placed on the inner side of 

 the table worked, which at length cracks it down about a foot, and as a 

 whole, it is then tapped into parts of the required length and breadth for 

 paving, eves of houses, &c. It is the slates of Masivdsi that answer for 

 roofing, these are generally something better than half an inch thick, and 

 they are flexible, that is to say, the eff'ects of the sun warp them, so much 

 so, that if put on with a cement, they crack and break. Finally I may 

 add, that a thin covering of refuse and stoney stuff", crowns the summit, 

 resting upon table-shaped pieces, which repose on larger cubic masses, 

 and thus far downwards the aspect of the whole is bare, rugged, and either 



perpendicular, 



