1831.] 
Rdjmakal Hills. 
37 
many of them are abundantly tough, and difficult to break with a hammer. Com- 
mencing a little south from Mungger, and going south almost to the parallel of C,ha- 
rakpdr, and then turning west to the banks of the Ciyul river, is a long uninter- 
rupted hill. On both sides it is siliceous, and, in one place, where I crossed it, the 
siliceous matter is nowhere interrupted ; but in every other place which I had occa- 
sion to observe, the centre of the hill seems to consist of a much softer material. 
One of the best of these stones, is a very fine grained hornblende in mass, con- 
taining small crystals of the same matter, and of a greyish black colour. There 
is a good quarry of it near Masumganj, where a few workmen have been long 
employed in cutting blocks, from whence images of Siva are finished at Mungger, 
and sent all over Bengal. 
Very nearly allied to the above, at Amjhar-gh tt, a very little south from the above 
mentioned quarry, I saw large rocks of a fine silky lustre, and consisting of parallel, 
thin layers of different shades of grey, but having nothing shistose in their texture. 
I found detached blocks of the same at Amrakol, S. W. some 10 or 12 miles. 
At the same place I found detached masses of a stone, which differs only from 
the former in its layers, being of different shades of red and white. I nowhere saw 
the solid rock of this stone ; but it is probable, that there is such in some place of 
easy access ; as two of the gates at Mungger have been in a great measure faced with 
it, and have been ornamented with many foliages cut in relieve. It does not take a 
finer polish than the hornblende, and does not resist the action of the air nearly so 
well, but from its colours it is more beautiful, and fit for buildings. In this stone 
had been imbedded many small cubical masses ; but they were in such a state of de- 
cay, that I can form no conjecture concerning their nature. 
By far the greater part of the stones of this class, that I saw, were, however, shis- 
tose or slaty, but none of them, at least by the native artists that I tried, could be 
split sufficiently thin for roofing slates. Some of them are, perhaps, argilit’es ; but the 
greater part is of shistose hornblende. The one, that is in the thinnest plates, least 
silky, and freest from crystallizations, and that, therefore, is the nearest an argillace- 
ous state, has somewhat of a bluish hue ; but in general they are black, or intensely 
dark grey, with a silky lustre, and sometimes of a fibrous, as well as of a slaty tex- 
ture ; and most of them contain small plates, I presume, of hornblende. They take 
an imperfect polish ; and when rubbed by a pencil of the same substance, leave a 
grey streak, so that they might serve for keeping accounts. In many parts’ they are 
wrought by the natives, who form platters of them ; or make slabs, with which they 
lay floors. In general, the workmen content themselves with taking fragments, that 
have been separated from the rocks by the streams of mountain torrents ; but in 
some places they have taken the pains to procure a smooth surface, and split masses 
from it, as required. In some places adjacent to these proper strata of slate, I ob- 
served shistose matter in decay, which appeared to me as a kind of transition be- 
tween the slate and the adjacent siliceous rocks ; for it was more harsh than the 
proper slate, and in some places showed a tendency to the conclioidal fracture. In 
some places these slates contain Pyrites, but not in great quantity. 
Very nearly allied to these shistose rocks are others of a similar colour, and silky 
lustie ; but their structure is not at all slaty, and consists of a number of parallel 
fibres strongly conglutmated. These are what I presume some naturalists call un- 
ripe asbestus. In some places it is disposed in thin parallel layers alternating with 
white quartz. It is not applied to use. 
At Hiiha, on the Man river, I observed a bed of a black talcose matter, with a 
si y ustre ; and, except where the river had laid it bare, enclosed on every side by 
