Cnvr. XXXII.] 
T!AI.A(!IIAT DISTBICT. 
693 
The manganese-ore deposits ot this district are, as far as is at present 
„, . , , . known, confined to a belt of country stretching 
rliysical characters ' " 
and geology of tlie man- east-north-east from Chandadoh and Thirori near 
ganese-orc belt. Katangi at the western end, through Bdhighdt 
and Ukua, to Jairasi at the eastern end, a total distance of about 
75 miles. Such a belt bounded by two parallel lines i) miles apart 
contains all the known deposits.* The northern line runs close to 
Rann-ama, Bakoda, Kurthitola, and Lilameta, and the southern close 
to Jamrapani, Waraseoni, Balaghat and Kanaridha. Produced to the 
west this belt includes the deposits of Kosumbah, Sitapathur and Sukli 
in the Bhandara district, and then runs into the — to a large extent 
geologically unknown — northern part of the Nagpur district, and south- 
ern part of the Seoni district. 
A length of about 32 miles of this belt at the western end — practically 
those portions of the belt west of the Gondia-Jabalpur branch of the 
Satpura Railway (Bengal- Nagpur Railway) — consists of plain country 
at an average elevation of perhaps some 1,000 feet above sea-level, and 
is in fact apart of the Nagpur-Balaghat 1,000-foot plain. The surface 
of the plain is composed to a large extent of alluvium and soil with 
a small quantity of low-level laterite, and the rock exposures occur 
chiefly in the small hills and mounds that protrude from this allu- 
vium, etc., and also in stream-beds. This part of the belt is largely 
given up to rice cultivation or else covered with thin tree jungle, but the 
hills rising from the plains are often densely wooded. To the east of the 
railway the belt, starting on the spur wherein the Balaghat manganese- 
ore deposit is situated, soon rises on to the Baihar plateau, which has an- 
average height of about 2.000 feet, with numerous, usually well-wooded, 
hill ranges rising to as high as 2,761 feet at Tipagarh hill, and 2,793 feet 
on the Deccan Trap range at the northern border of the district outside 
the belt. On this plateau rock exposures are very numerous in most 
parts, although there are patches of alluvium bordering the larger rivers 
such as the Nahara and Banjar. This belt, to the west of the longi- 
tude of Baihar, is drained by the M^ainganga and its tributaries the 
Lusra, Uskal and Nahara. To the east and north-east of Baihar the 
plateau is drained by the Tonar (Taunaur) and Banjar, which flow 
north eventually to join the Narbada river. 
Except for a small patch of Deccan Trap basalt, capped by laterite 
on Tipagarh hill, and numerous patches of high-level laterite — often 
* Manganese-ore is said to have been recently found near Kinhi some 20 miles south- 
east of this belt. 
IV G 2 
