1830.3 Sketch of the Geology of the Bhartpur District. 14$ 
With these few imperfect and unsatisfactory observations I must conclude. I 
may, as a recommendation to some of your readers to take up the question, re- 
mark, that in a similar manner may be determined the effect of a punkah, of 
flannel, of woollen clothes, &c. and the state of the feelings accurately fixed when 
such things become merely bearable or necessary. All this is sufficiently obvious, 
and I may add that a few resuits obtained by this method of using the thermo- 
meter would give more useful information as to the nature of any climate, as it 
would be likely to affect the feelings, than the many-columned tables which 
meteorologists are so fond of drawing up. It appears equally applicable to the 
purposes of the gardener, for it can scarcely admit of question, that it is the more 
or less rapid loss of heat that regulates the question, as to any particular vegetable 
production thriving or being destroyed altogether. And to determine this question, 
the mere temperature of the air, as I have already shown, affords us little assist- 
ance. 
II . — Sketch of the Geology of the Bhartpur District. 
Into a minute description of the Geology of the Bhartpur district, I cannot en- 
ter ; nor would I have troubled you at this time, had I not felt that in the present 
scarcity of information on the subject of Indian Geology, even a few scattered facts 
acquire a certain degree of importance. They serve, at least, as landmarks to 
guide others in their researches ; and had we at an earlier period been possessed of 
that medium of communicating information which your periodical now affords, 
many facts which are lost would doubtless have been recorded, and these might, 
ere this, have proved, in the aggregate, a most valuable body of information. 
This district may be described as forming a portion of the south-western boun- 
dary of the valley of the Ganges and Jumna. Its surface presents a level platform, 
covered, in most situations, by alluvial and diluvial deposits, and elevated about 
60 feet above the level of the Jumna. The country is now in a high state of eulti- 
tivation, and exhibits a pleasing picture of prosperity and peace, as contrasted with 
its condition only a few j'ears ago. The rocks which immediately underlie these 
deposits, in some few situations, occur near the surface, and are quarried for archi- 
tectural purposes ; while strata, probably of an anterior date to these, here and there 
basset out, forming, especially in the northern portion, small detached hills and 
collines which are generally topped by a village. To the west again this district 
is flanked by a belt of older rocks, which extends in a north- easterly direction from 
Biana, and which is interposed between the newer sandstone and the decidedly 
primitive formations of the Jdpur and Ajmer territories. The eastern limit of 
this belt is marked by alow hill range, which is observed a short distance to the 
west of the city of Bhartpfir. The quarries, which have, for centuries, supplied all 
this portion of India with materials for building, are situated in the Bhartpur dis- 
trict ; and, as the sandstones of these quarries are important, both in a statistical 
and geological point of view, I shall, in the first place, communicate to you the little 
information which I have been enabled to collect relative to their natural history. 
Of these rocks there are three varieties. No. 1 is a very close grained argil- 
laceous sandstone, with a schistose, passing into a subschistose texture. It is of a uni- 
form dark red color, is soft so as to be scratched by the kuife, and is apparently 
composed of minute quartzose particles, connected together by an argillaceous or 
ferrugino-argillaceous basis : minute scales of greyish mica are distributed through 
the mass, to which circumstance it probably owes its schistose texture. No. 2 is 
also a close grained argillaceous sandstone. This is a very beautiful variety, its 
color is dark-red, speckled with white spots, which are generally roundish, and 
which vary from upwards of an inch in diameter to the size of a pin’s head. This 
rock is less schistose than No. 1, and, when slabs of it are propeily cut, it has, at 
a little distance, exactly the appearance of a fine red porphyry. No. 3 is a rock si- 
milar in point of composition, texture, &c. to the last, but is of a salmon color, 
passing into greyish white. The two last varieties are less micacious than - o. 1. 
The above rocks are all of them employed in architecture, and are remarkably free 
working stones. Of the two first varieties, the fort Agra, of and most of the build- 
ings of the Agra and neighbouring districts, are constructed ; and among these 
buildings are some of the most splendid edifices of Hindustan. The daik-rec coior 
and brick-like aspect of the sandstones, as contrasted with the puie white ot the 
Makrana marble, of which the cupola, pavilions, and trellices of those juudings yic 
