100 



Geological Features 



[NO. 1, NEW SERIES, 



tion, either upon, or beneath the surface, a distance of about eight 

 miles and contains the different varieties of this ore and their dif- 

 ferent crystals. 



In the vicinity of Tovarankurchy are considerable hills of quartz 

 rock having a quantity of green diallage in its composition. In 

 the Maloane mountains, gonulite is the prevalent rock and it im- 

 beds black and common garnets which with the massive variety is 

 found in considerable quantities in the granite soil of this region. 

 Alagiri Malei is a mountain situated 12 miles north of Madura and 

 is about 1,000 feet in height and some ten or fifteen miles in length, 

 and is composed almost entirely of aventurine quartz or micaceous 

 sandstone. Some portions of it appear to have been formed upon 

 a shore and are stratified and have inequalities resembling ripple- 

 marks. 



Five miles north-east from Madura is that remarkable rock call- 

 ed Elephant mountain, from its resemblance to that animal in a re- 

 clining posture. It is a block of gneiss two miles in length, J of a 

 mile wide and some 250 feet high. Strata of felspar, mica, and 

 quartz run horizontally through this mass from one end to the 

 other and are seen on both sides of it, and are crossed at different 

 angles by veins or faults of a felspathic rock which pass through 

 the entire vein. A porch and a temple have been hewn out of one 

 side of it. As there can be but little doubt of the sedimentary 

 origin of this rock, we must suppose it to have been formed in 

 some vast pit and elevated to its present position by that force 

 which has produced so many of the changes which have from time 

 to time variegated the surface of the earth. 



The vast fields of granite at the south-eastern base of the Siru- 

 malei and Alagiri mountains would seem to indicate the direction 

 and denuding force of ancient oceanic currents. 



At Vadapadi 16 miles north-west from Madura is a small moun- 

 tain composed almost entirely of porphyritic greenstone. The 

 hornblende in its composition is of the dark basaltic variety and the 

 felspar is of the andesine or the white variety and in the composi- 

 tion of the mass the columns appear in spots like the skin of a 

 Leopard. 



