GEOLOGY OF CENTRAL INDIA. 



83 



The country surrounding Nas'irahad is bleak and desolate. The 

 cantonment itself is situated on an elevated plain, exhibiting, in almost 

 every position, the out-croppings of the vertical strata; and the soil, 

 where there is any soil, is seldom deeper than a few inches. The surface 

 rises into several low rounded swells, destitute, or nearly so, of vegetation, 

 and in the neighbouring country several detached hills and hill groups 

 are observed. To the west and north-west, the central range of hills is 

 seen to stretch. It presents a bleak and rocky outline. It rises abruptly 

 from the plains, and in some situations exhibits peaks, frequently of con- 

 siderable altitude, — some of them, in the neighbourhood of Ajmere, rising 

 about one thousand two hundred feet above the level of the plain. In 

 this |)ortion of the country there is scarcely a single tree observed. 



The rocks which occur are different modifications of granitic rocks, 

 alternating with each other in narrow beds, and these are associated with 

 gneiss, micaceous schist, and hornblende rocks. All these pass into each 

 other by insensible degrees. The hornblende rocks pass into greenstone, 

 and also exist in the form of pure hornblende rock and hornblende 

 schist, with both of which felspar occurs associated, and these last 

 pass into sienitic granite. The gneisses are generally schistoses, 

 not waved, and the granites are very various — sometimes large grained, 

 but more generally small grained. In the above, beds of pure white quartz 

 occur, — these last frequently rising into hills completely destitute of vege- 

 tation. The quartz, exhibiting a saccharine structure, described in page 62, 

 is found here, and other varieties are semi-transparent. Some also exhibit 

 an almost schistose structure, and are similar to those described in page 73. 

 Indeed, the whole series of rocks which occurs at Nastrabad, is very simi- 

 lar to that described as being met with at and near 3Ie/ tah. The rocks 

 of this series are, generally speaking, stratified, and the strata run in a 

 direction N. W. and S. W. probably skirting, through a large extent of 



