20 



Account of Minerals 



ons for the purposes of adoration. Some varieties are used in parts 

 of the Ceded Districts and Mysore to grind the sandal wood into pow- 

 der, for the composition of the ticd^ with which some castes of the 

 natives mark their foreheads. An argillaceous variety procured be- 

 tween Tarputtri and Cuddapah is carved, like the agalmatolite of China, 

 into images representing the whole Hindu pantheon, avatars of Vishnu, 

 &:c. The darker and more compact varieties often assimilate serpentine, 

 and take a fine poli;>h. This stone is in great request for the larger 

 kind of idols that usually sit or stand enshrined in the Vimanas of Hin- 

 du temples, and many of the ancient inscriptions of the S. uthern Mah- 

 ratta Country, Mysore, the Nizam's territories, are engraven on pillars 

 or blocks of this mineral. Some of the beautifully polished pillars, 

 and inscribed slabs in the ruined temples of the old Hindu capital of 

 Bijanugger and Annagundi are of this stone. In Mysore, whole temples 

 are constructed of it. The dark coloured stone, of which the pillars 

 supporting the elegant mausoleum of Hyder and Tippoo, near the Lai 

 Bagh at Seringapatam, are composed, appears to me, after a close exa- 

 mination of the pillars themselves and the quarries at Turivicary, whence 

 the stone was brought, to be a highly indurated ferruginous, and crystal- 

 line variety of this rock, having some of the characters of a serpentine, 

 rather than the basaltic or hornblende rock, which Buchanan and Benza 

 have severally pronounced it to be. Specimens of this variety taken 

 irom the qwarries of Turivicary, and also of the potstone of Mysore, I 

 have forwarded for presentation. 



33. ~Marble from Kulladghee, pale flesh-coloured, occurs in beds and 

 veins in the surrounding slates and limestone, assimilating in texture, 

 colour and fineness of polish the Tiree marble, but does not imbed 

 mica, hornblende, or sahlite : chlorite, however, is sometimes seen in 

 their greenish seams. Specimens of the lithographic limestones near 0> 

 Kulladghee and Bagalcota, have been already transmitted to the Society. 



34. — White marble from Bagalcota, streaked with green chloritic zones 

 resembling the antique Cipolin marble. 



35. — Lithographic limestone from Kurnool, imbedding stalaetiform 

 oxide of iron. 



36. — White marble from Kulladghee. 



37. -— Drab-coloured limestone from Talicota, in the Rastea's territory, 

 laminar and compact, exhibiting delicate arborescencies between the 

 laminae, or layers of deposition. 



88. — Crystalline limestone, approaching marble in texture, from Kur- 

 nool. Colour mottled green and white ; translucent in thin fragments, 

 difficultly frangible, some varieties are so hard as to give fire with steel, 



