1838.] 



of the Southern Mahratta Country. 



461 



met with it near Kulladghee, a few miles from Darwar, at Hoolgoor, 

 along the river Mulperba, and in Soonda. At Kulladghee it contains 

 beds of white quartz, in which I found specimens of copper-green. It 

 has sometimes a greenish colour, and a blue variety is occasionally 

 associated with it, which very much resembles roofing slate ; but has 

 seldom its hardness. It is also associated, in some places, with a rock 

 closely resembling the grey wacke slate of the south of Scotland. 



The red and white varieties of the clay-slate occur in very conside- 

 rable abundance in these districts. They extend for several miles 

 around Darwar, where they are associated with quartz rock. They 

 are found a little to the north of Kulladghee; and I met with them 

 also near Holvully in Soonda. They may be said generally to consist of 

 felspar, more or less coloured with iron, and having a loose aggrega- 

 tion. Some varieties, however, are intimately mixed with quartzy 

 particles ; which gives them a great degree of hardness ; and they 

 thus gradually pass into the quartz rock with which they are associat- 

 ed. The white variety is frequently so pure, that, in hand specimens, 

 it would at once be pronounced to be a pure porcelain earth. This va- 

 riety is found in great abundance at Darwar ; and it might, I have no 

 doubt, be very advantageously quarried for the purpose of being manu- 

 factured into procelain ware. It has an obscure slaty structure. 

 The red varieties with which it is associated, are distinctly slaty. 

 There is a gradual transition from the purest white kind, to those 

 having a deep red or brown colour. A light purplish colour is also 

 sometimes met with. 



At Darwar, these* rocks are distinctly stratified. The strata are 

 nearly vertical ; and their direction is north-west and south-east. No 

 single variety forms a continuous bed of any extent ; but, on the con- 

 trary, several varieties are often found within a very short distance of 

 each other, in the same stratum ; and they are almost always traversed 

 by thin veins of a brown quartz. In addition to the strata seams, 

 these rocks are generally traversed by other parallel seams, which 

 cross the strata, and thus, in some instances, give rise to large rhom- 

 boidal masses. So parallel and distinct are these transverse seams, 

 which are seen in some of the large wells at Darwar, that they might, 

 on a superficial view, be readily mistaken for the true stratification. 



Owing to the soft nature of these clay-slates, wells can be very 

 easily dug at Darwar ; and several that were dug, during my residence 

 there, to a depth of at least seventy feet, afforded me opportunities of 

 studying the nature of the strata. Sometimes the red, sometimes the 

 white, variety occurs at the surface ; and I have found the latter at a 

 depth of seventy feet. Some of the varieties, when weathered, assume 

 an ochre yellow colour. 



A fine display of these varieties of the clay-slate occurs in the bed 



