1S40.] 



from the Peninsula of India. 



19 



situ^ and from its decidedly stratified character, I should rather be in- 

 clined to pronounce it thick bedded or granitoidal gneiss ; in some hand 

 specimens, however, it is not to be distinguished from true granite. It is 

 an interesting specimen to the advocates daily gaining ground, of the 

 theory of the mineral metamorphism of rocks, constituting one of the al- 

 most imperceptible gradations by which a normal rock is supposed by 

 Keilhan and others to pass into rocks, generally considered abnormal, or 

 in other words involving doubts as to the plutonic origin of granite, 

 Gairsipa, not only affords to the geologist an instructive and beautiful 

 expose of the rocks of the gneiss and mica schist system, the dip and 

 direction of strata, but affords to the lover of nature, the magnificent 

 spectacle of one of the most stupendous (in point of height) cataracts on 

 the face of the globe, tumbling over a precipice of these rocks more than 

 eight times the height of the celebrated Fails of Niagara. The breadth 

 of the river above the Falls is about 30O yards ; it was full from bank 

 to bank at the time of my visit : the depth of the stream on the average 

 about 10 feet. The sheer height of the scarp over which the waters were 

 precipitated, according to careful measurements, twice repeated, commu- 

 nicated to me by Mr. T. Lushington, 888 feet to the surface of the water 

 in the basin, and the depth of the basin 300 feet, making a total of 1188 

 feet. The height of Niagara is about 140 feet, but the breadth of the 

 river far exceeds that of Gairsipa. 



29. — Gneiss of Gairsipa, hornblende replacing mica, which appears in 

 scales, disseminated among the former mineral. 



30. ~Variety do. do.— same locality. 



SI. — Gneiss passing into hornblende schist — same locality. 



32. — Talcose pot-stone {lapis oUaris), associated with the talc slate 

 in the S. E. part of the Darwar district. Christie observes, that all 

 " the fine plaster with which the walls of the houses are covered in India, 

 and which is so much admired by strangers, is composed of a mixture 

 of fine lime and soapstone, rubbed down with water : when the plaster 

 is nearly dry, it is rubbed over with a dry piece of soapstone which 

 gives it a polish very much resembling that of polished marble." This 

 stone I have also found associated with asbestus in the talcose slate of 

 the western parts of Mysore : it is cut into pencils and used by the na- 

 tives for writing on cloth, stiffened and prepared with charcoal, and is held 

 in holy estimation both by the Brahmins, the Jangaras and laity of the 

 Lingayet sect. By the former it is hollowed out into vessels used in 

 preparing their food, and by the latter for their phallitie emblem, which 

 is preserved inviolate from unhallowed gaze in the small silver box, 

 which the worshippers of the lirigum invariably carry about their per- 



