Asiatic Researches, Vol. XVII. Part 1 . 
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■barometrical measurement, and the hill at the mint of Sugar is something more than 
2300 feet (trigonometrical result.) From Sdgar round in every direction, the ge- 
neral level diminishes, but westward towards Bhdpalpur very gradually, as the sup- 
posed level is in that quarter somewhere between 16 and 1700 feet above the sea. 
Eastward towards Hatta and Garukdta also the diminution is gradual, the eleva- 
tions being in general 1500 feet. It is towards the north the most rapid ; the Mal- 
taun pass, thirty-six miles north of Sugar, being elevated only 1000 feet; Serong W. 
of N. 800; andHirnpur E ofN. between 1000 and 1100. The primary range skirting 
the alluvium of the Nermada (the southern boundary’) is about equal in height to 
the trap and sandstone hills in the neighbourhood of S.igal, while that of Bundel- 
khand (to the north) is 1000 feet lower. 
The valleys and extended plains are every where composed of a trappean or ba- 
saltic mould, blackish in colour, which reposes on a bed of either basalt or of com- 
pact wacken. This wacken is disposed either in ovoidal or angular pieces. “ Un- 
der it lies an amygdaloid, decomposing and decomposed — which as a retentive 
clay keeps up the water near the surface throughout this tract.” 
The hills are either trap or sandstone. The former are sloping and rounded, 
having seldom any thing of an escarpment to mark them. “ Their surfaces are 
thickly strewed with masses of basalt or wacken imbedded in a basaltic or wacke 
clay.” “ From one hundred and twenty to one hundred and fifty feet, may be 
said to be the general height of those that rise above the rank of swells and knolls ; 
whilst a hummock, a cone, or something of a truncated cone, occurring in their 
otherwise even outline, and which serve to characterize them from their sandstone 
companions, partly increases the elevation.” 
“ The sandstone rock is very prevalent as a mere mound or rise constantly 
having a village upon it, and situated often on the plain, oftener on the edge of the 
plain, with a trap bill partly resting on it. In particular parts of the country, how- 
ever, ranges of sandstone hills occur, equalling, though never exceeding in height 
and extent of range, those of the trap.” 
Red marie or clay is frequently interstratified and galls of clay imbedded. The 
colour varies from a dark chocolate, through various shades of red, to white. Two 
colours are often found intermixed, a deep chocolate, and a white either in alternate 
streaks, or in a ground with spots. These are generally amorphous. The schis- 
tose varieties are clouded, streaked, (transverse to the structure,) zoned, the colours 
being green, brown, red, and yellow. These varieties are highly micaceous. The 
strata are always horizontal, and on a full view of all the phenomena, Captain C. 
considers himself justified in pronouncing it to be the new red sandstone of Maecul- 
loch, and to belong to the lowermost strata of that formation. But he adds, what 
also struck us on a view of the specimens, that it is not always a freestone, but on 
the contrary ” a hard glassy splintery substance :” in fact, a true quartz rock, or 
not to be distinguished from such in hand specimens. Some varieties are so schis- 
tose in their structure as to be quarried for flags, slates, &c. 
There is a great sameness amongst the trap rocks of this formation. They are 
in general of an earthy homogeneous aspect, with little if any resemblance to the 
crystalline members of this family, whether syenite, or greenstone, nor is there 
even a clink-stone or a clay-stone. They may he described rather as a series of 
basalts of a fine grain ; of wackens and amygdaloid*. They appear to he all com- 
posed of an intimate mixture of felspar and hornblende in an earthy state, the latter 
mineral characterizing the harder varieties. In general, no appearance of structure 
can be detected, hut when otherwise, it is of the prismatic character ; and it may 
be seen sometimes even in hand specimens, which break with a cleavage into four 
sided prisms *. 
* The author of this paper thinks it “ mnch to be wished, that the term basalt 
could be extended so as to include all those rocks named wackens ; for although 
there is some slight diversity of fracture and frangibility, and some little variation 
in colour, yet a difference in name seems quite uncalled for in regard to them, and 
only calculated to mislead.” In his further remarks, however, he admits, that the 
basalts are all compact without any foreign mineral imbedded, whereas the wack- 
ens are not so, and generally contain imbedded portions of the mineral, which be- 
longs to their associated amygdaloid®. If this he the case, and the wacken be not 
one of a numerous series of fine gradations between basalt and amygdaloid, then 
the distinction appears well -founded, and the difference of names worth preserv- 
ing. In all questions of the identity of compound rocks, where the grain is too fine 
to admit of perfect certainty as to the mineral nature of the component parts ; we 
