DR. McCLELLA.ND’S TALENTS AND RESEARCH. 
253 
throughout the Shore district. The strata 
are subdivided by slaty rifts like the copper- 
slate, but unlike the latter, they are almost 
always flat and seldom or never form 
basins, or contain bituminous talcose, or 
metallic fossils ; but are distinguished by 
containing concretions resembling small 
fishes. 
These several varieties of limestone are 
scarcely to be distinguished from each other, 
by their external or chemical characters ; 
which may be set dowU as follows : 
Colours, bluish-grey and ash-grey. Ex- 
ternally tarnished with dirty greyish white. 
Sometimes the internal and external colours 
alternate on the surface, giving the rock a 
variegated flinty appearance. 
External surface smooth, and without lus- 
tre. Lustre of the fracture dull. Fracture 
compact, large conchoidal, inclining to fine 
splintery. Fragments irregular, somewhat 
shai’p-edged. It is feebly translucent on the 
edges. It affords a light-coloured streak, 
and is capable of being scratched by the 
knife, but not without difficulty. Specific 
gravity, 2*732. 
Chemical characters. It dissolves com- 
pletely, v/ith brisk effervescence, in nitric 
acid, and burns to a fine white quicklime 
without falling to powder.” 
Magnesian limestone occurs as a partial 
deposite along the course of the small river 
that drains the valley of Shore. The 
strata are nearly horizontal, or seldom 
dip more than 15^. Vesicular limestone 
is a coarse breccia, composed of frag- 
ments of transition and floetz limestones. 
Porphyritic septarium occurs in overlying 
masses near the highest ridges and summits 
of Takill composed of common felspar, as a 
matrix to fragments of transition limestone. 
Hornstone, an oil green, and greenish grey, 
faintly clouded with siskin green, occurs 
in massive forms. Arragonite is found 
near the village of Gooseragong in Shore 
valley. We now come to the alluvial rocks. 
“ In Kemaon, as in all other mountainous 
countries, we can have no such unifoi*mity 
in alluvial deposites as in low countries ; but 
the phenomena connected with their produc- 
tion can be here studied with more advan- 
tage, as mountains are the great natural 
laboratories in which alluvial rocks are pre- 
pared, and from which they are transmitted 
to fertilize the earth. 
Alluvial deposites are derived from the 
disintegration of the older rocks, by the de- 
stroying agencies of heat, light, moisture, and 
we may perhaps be allowed to add, of earth- 
quakes, and the attrition of winds. It may 
indeed be improper to designate as destroying 
those effects that keep up the never-ceasing- 
supply of alluvial soil, so essential to the 
existence of the inhabitants of this globe, 
vegetable as well as animal. In Kemaon, 
the varieties of these deposites are few, and 
differ frem each other according to the source 
from which they Avere derived. In arranging 
them, we cannot follow any rule founded on 
priority of formation, the changes that pro- 
duce the different varieties being simulta- 
neous.” 
Siliceous alluvial deposites derived from 
the most elevated ridges of granite and 
gneiss contain quartz of pure siliceous 
earth. Aluminous clay is next noticed as 
presenting varieties. Dr. McClelland had 
no opportunity of seing volcanic rocks in 
Kemaon exeept the septarium. 
This, properly speaking, brings us to the 
end of Dr. McClellan d^s work on the geo- 
logy of Kemaon. There are other chap- 
ters on the mines of the north eastern 
frontier of Kemaon ; on climatology and 
on earthquakes; a general view of the 
zoology of Kemaon, and an enquiry into 
the causes of goitre, which we shall notice 
hereafter. We however cannot close this 
review without strongly recommending the 
work to public support : we have not ven- 
tured on any commendation without, in the 
first place, exhibiting a copious outline of 
its contents, that our readers might thus be 
better able to judge of the great value of 
a work which exhibits the geology of one 
of the most interesting portions of British 
India. The information contained in the 
work is conveyed in a language as chaste 
as it is lucid ; and in the course of the 
undertaking the author has evinced no 
common degree of talent and research. 
Art. 11. — Results of an Enquiry respect- 
ing the Law of Mortality for British 
India, deduced from the Reports and 
Appendices of the Committee appointed 
hy the Bengal Government in 1834, to 
consider the expediency of a Government 
Life Assurance Institution. By Cap- 
tain H. B. Henderson, Assistant 
Military Auditor General, Secretary to 
the Committee. Transactions of the 
Asiatic Society, 1836. 
Subjects of the nature contained in the 
paper we are about to examine are of infinite 
