30 
Records of the Geological Survey of India. 
[VOL. VII. 
that if there is demand enough in Indian markets, iron may be manufactured in this 
country and sold at a much cheaper rate than imported English iron can be bought for. 
There are always difficulties inherent in the starting of new undertakings ; but we have 
the beacons of past failures in other parts of India to steer our way by. If any of the 
Companies at Raniganj who possess their own coal, iron-ore, and kunkur were to take up the 
project of iron smelting, they would have immense advantages over Government in respect 
of cost of raw materials; should, therefore, the present attempt be in the least degree 
successful, it will be a guarantee to all Companies of the value of their own resources. 
THEODORE W. H. HUGHES. 
Note on the habitat in India of the elastic sandstone, oe so called 
Itacolitmyte. 
Although within the last twenty years members of the Geological Survey have frequently 
passed within sixty miles of this interesting locality, no one has been able to visit it—so 
great is the difficulty and loss of time involved in making the shortest excursion off the 
main highways in India. At last an amateur has come to the rescue; and it is to be hoped 
the example will be followed elsewhere, for official geologists, having to work by rule and 
measure, can rarelv supply the place of the genuine amateur in the repeated contemplative 
observation of local conditions. Geology has boasted of several distinguished and devoted 
amateurs iu India. The recent comparative scarcity of such labourers must be due to the 
greatly increased activity of official life, and not to any growing distaste for recreation in 
scientific pursuits. Colonel McMahon, Commissioner of Hissar, has sent a box of specimens 
and somo very interesting notes illustrative of the only known position of the elastic sand¬ 
stone. The description is given as far as possible in his own words. 
Kaliana is five miles west from Dadri, a town in the Jheend state, sixty miles nearly due 
west from Delhi. The hill, which is one of the Trigonometrical Survey Stations, is 1,477 feet 
above the sea, and about 740 above the plain. It consists of a long ridge, running for some 
miles iu about a north-north-east direction; one of the many such ridges which in this region 
of the Punjab stretch far into the plains, the alluvial areas between them being confluent 
with that of the Iudo-gangetic deposits. These ridges are prolongations of the Aravali 
mountain system, and are approximately on the lino of the Indo-gangetic watershed. The 
ridge of Putelipur Sikri, running north-north-east to within a few miles of Agra, is the most 
westerly member of the Aravali system of disturbance; it is formed of up-turned Yindhyan 
rocks, being the western limit of the great spread of these ancient deposits, stretching from 
hero round by Saugor to Sasseram in Debar. In examining tbe ground to the west of 
Agra, the Survey geologists have been a little puzzled by the position ot the elastic sand¬ 
stone ; this name, and the superficial appearance of the stone, loading one to expect a 
recurrence of some unaltered rock-group, perhaps an outlier of tbe Vindhyan series. It is 
an excellent illustration of the way in which deeper geological meanings become attached 
to words based originally upon superficial characters, involving of course a reciprocal restric¬ 
tion of the extension or denotation of the term. This stone is in reality only a very local 
and modified condition of a massive quartzite, which is the general name for metamorphic 
sandstones. 
The highest part of the ridge immediately overhangs the village of Ivaliana. It is 
here double-crested, tbe projecting ribs being formed by two strong beds of ironstone, a quart¬ 
zite strongly impregnated by massive specular iron (black haimatite) and some magnetic 
iron, strings of pure ore occurring locally in the mass. These bands of ferruginous quart¬ 
zite are regularly interstratified with the mica and hornblende-schists; and tbe earthy cellular 
quartzite so largely quarried for millstones is distinctly an intercalated member of the same 
