1850,] Eastern Districts of the Souhah of Ilydrubad. 187 



Corundum and Emery. — Both these varieties of the same mineral 

 are found in the nullahs leading from the Khanagiri hills in tha 

 Kummum Sircar, and also in the Palooncha country. They are 

 picked up in the rains, and are sold for a trifle to lapidaries, for 

 cutting and polishing gems, and also to sicklegars, or armourers, 

 who pound them and manufacture them as they do coarse G-arnets 

 into sharpening wheels, to give a fine edge to swords and knives, 

 the Corundums are of two colours a dingy red and white, the last 

 is looked on as the hardest and more valuable of the two. 



Bock Crystal and Rose Quartz, are common and sometimes cut 

 like the Amethysts and Garnets. 



Tabular limestone or what has been called limestone of the blue 

 slate formation is very abundant on the left bank of the Kistnah, 

 both on the Anantaghiri Pergunnah of the Kummemmett Sircar, 

 and in the Wazerabad Pergunnah of Devarcondah ; it is coloured 

 various shades of red, blue, and white, and besides being burnt 

 for mortar, affords serviceable material for building and roofing. 

 The white slabs are used for inscription tablets on tombstones, 

 and have been tried with some success in lithography ; they are 

 comparatively free from veins of the crystalized carbonate of 

 lime and of Quartz, and large slabs are to be procured without a 

 flaw or a stain ; a slab of this stone is used at the Residency Litho- 

 graphic Press, and it is said not to yield such a clear print, as the 

 stones procured from Europe. This inferiority is in all probabili- 

 ty owing to the superior hardness and close texture of this one 

 specimen, and might not be applicable to every variety procurable 

 from the same formation. 



Steatite. — A coarse kind of Steatite is pretty commonly diffused 

 being met with at several places in the "Warungul Sircar, and also 

 near Sircillah and at Maytpilly in Elgundel, it is formed into 

 pots, kuttoories, and furnishes children with writing pencils, and 

 the poorer classes of Lingayets with lings, after they have been 

 duly consecrated by their Grooroo. 



Subcarbonate of Soda, Sfc. — When the rains have ceased, and 

 generally throughout the dry season, a substance is found in many 

 places covering the granitic sand, like hoar-frost, this is the khar or 

 kharaneemuck of the Hindoostanees, and has for its chief ingredi- 

 ent the Subcarbonate of Soda, but mixed with certain proportions 

 of common salt, and the muriate of magnesia, the latter salt mak- 

 ing the substance very deliquescent ; it is collected by the Dhobees 



VOL. XVI. JfO- XXXViU. A 1 



