22 



Account of Minerals 



quartzy paste imbedding angular fragments of white and reddish quartz, 

 with felspar disseminated. 



42. ~Do. do. a ferruginous paste, cementing fragments of a decora- 

 posing chert, apparently from veins in the associated limestone ; the paste 

 approaches a true iron ore, and contains small cavities lined with a mam- 

 millary haematite. 



43. — Pudding-stone from the old red sandstone formation, north of 

 the Malpurba :— rounded pebbles of quartz rock imbedded in a crystal- 

 line reddish brown sandstone. 



44. — Diaphonous quartz with a bluish tint, mentioned by Christie, as- 

 sociated with the sandstone ; from the hill south of KuUadghee and 

 near Padshapoor. I have forwarded specimens of the white variegated 

 sand stones of Badami and Mudibhal. 



45. — Alum in whitish earthy superficial efflorescences between the 

 laminae and on the air -exposed surfaces of a purplish aluminiferous shale, 

 alternating with the old red sandstone, in the cliffs at the falls of the 

 Gutpurba near Gokauk. The occurrence of this mineral in the forma- 

 tions of the Southern Mahratta Country appears to have escaped the 

 observations of Marshall, Christie and Sykes. It is found in the lower por- 

 tions of the cliffs, constituting the precipice over which the Gutpurba 

 rolls on its passage to the low country, through which the Kistnah flows, 

 at the bottom of one of those singular and deep fissures that clear the 

 sandstone rocks from summit to base. The shale in which it occurs is 

 a common slate clay, of a purplish brown hue, and tastes, generally, dis- 

 tinctly of alum, which, however, rarely appears in an efflorescent state, 

 save on air-exposed surfaces : it does not resemble in the slightest degree 

 the globular greyish black alum slate of Europe, nor its bituminous alu- 

 miniferous shale. I have also discovered alum and common salt in the 

 rocks of the copper mountain range in a similar efflorescent state, in a ' 

 rock, resembling somewhat the glassy alum slate of mineralogists, but 

 cellular, ferruginous, and exhibiting purple and yellow iridescent hues. 

 Captain Arthur informed Sir Whitelaw Ainslie that he discovered alum 

 in Travancore, in a soft dark coloured laminated earthy matter, which 

 contained sulphur in the state of sulphuret of iron; and that at cer- 

 tain depths in the soil, under the laminated mntter, he observed a regular 

 stratum of charcoal, a circumstance which le<s!. him to conjecture that the 

 bed in which the mineral is found is of a vegetable origin ; and we know 

 that it has been ascertained by Vauquelin and others that in what is 

 termed the alum ore of La Tolfa^ potass is met with in considerable 

 quantity. Alum is associated with the coal measures and bituraenife- 

 rous rocks of Europe, its existence therefore in the sandstone rocks of 



