IN BUNDELKHAND. 103 



they assume characters so various, that in some instances, it is difficult to 

 distinguish them from the older schists. The sandstone also changes, 

 gradually becoming *silicious, and at the bottom it closely resembles 

 some varieties of quartz rock, but the horizontal position of the beds is 

 constantly preserved, and in all the glens, particularly in that of the jB«- 

 gin river, black bituminous shale crops out from beneath the sandstone. 

 I excavated this shale to the depth of six feet— but having no other means 

 than such as I could procure on the spot, the influx of water soon over- 

 powered my operations. I found, however, that the bituminous quality of 

 the shale increased, — fragments of it, throwing out strong shoots of flame 

 when ignited, and I was disposed to think that coal was not far distant. 



I have ventured to call this formation neiv red sandstone, considering 

 it in the same light as the series of rocks so termed in England, and it 

 would appear, that this denomination is in some measure corroborated by 

 other facts, in other portions of the same range of hills, but principally 

 by the proof of its saliferous nature. It has been f shewn, that at the 

 village of Kattra, the soil is impregnated with salt, which is there, and in 

 many other adjacent villages, extracted by the native process of lixivia- 

 tion, such is the case also on the banks of the Tons river, and |Mr. Stir- 

 ling, who published an account of the diamond mines of Panna, remarks, 

 that salt abounds in the soil at the foot of this range, opposite Allahabad, 

 and between that place and Mirzapur. These facts, therefore, together 



with 



* I observed the same circumstance in the waterfall of Bowta — See Art. 2d of this volume, 

 f Art. 11th of this volume. 



:j: See Oriental Quarterly, No. — Page — Mr. Stirling did not visit any other mines than those 

 in the immediate vicinity of Panna; and Dr. Hamilton, who has published an account of these 

 mines in the Edinburgh Pliilosophical Transactions, vol. 1, distinctly says, that he did not even go so 

 far as Parma, and could not have seen any other than a few superficial mines, at the top of the Bis- 

 ramga7)j Ghat. 



