i>art 3.] Ball: Building and Ornamental Slones of India. 
103 
The ancient Druid-like remains called Karumbar rings which are found in various parts 
of Trichinopoli generally consist of rough blocks of gneiss. In parts of Chutia Nagpur 
old settlements of the Ivols made use of gneiss in the erection of Menhers and Dolmens. 
But, at the present day, the Kols who erect such memorials for the most part dwell in a 
part of the country where flags of schist and slate are readily accessible, and they therefore 
do not use gneiss. 
In Madras Mr. Foote says that the beds of very hornblendic gneiss which occur “at 
Palaveram, Cuddapary Choultry, and Puttandulum are largely quarried for the manufacture 
of articles of domestic use as well as for building purposes.” 
Other varieties in different localities in Madras are mentioned; some of these have been 
quarried to a considerable extent. 
Except for purely local purposes, the construction of bridges, &c., where, upon econo¬ 
mical grounds, the rock nearest to hand has been made use of, the varieties of granite, 
gneiss, &c., on account of their hardness, have not commended themselves as building 
materials to English engineers. So far as I know, there are, throughout the country, no 
British buildings of importance, in the construction of which these materials have been 
used. 
References. 
Orissa 
Blanford, Nilghiris 
King, Trichinopoli ... 
Foote, Madras 
Balfour's Cyclopaedia, Art. Granite 
Mem. Geol. Surv., India, I, p. 277. 
p. 244, 
IV, p. 367. 
X, p. 131. 
II.—Basalt. 
Trap .—Any one who has paid attention to the subject is aware that the greater part 
of Western India, the Dekan, and the Central Provinces is occupied by a vast accumulation 
of eruptive rocks which are generally spoken of as Dekan trap. From north to south these 
rocks extend from a point 100 miles south of Gwalior to the vicinity of Goa, and from west 
to east from Bombay to Umerkantak, thus covering an area of about l-6th of the peninsula, 
south of the Ganges. Roughly estimated, we may put down the area in which these rocks 
prevail at 200,000 square miles. 
On the eastern side of the peninsula too, rocks, which, without going into details of the 
mineral constituents, may be conveniently spoken of generieally as trap, occupy a by no 
means inconsiderable area, as in the Rajmehal Hills. 
From the evidence afforded by the sedimentary beds with which these rocks occur in- 
teibedded, those in the west appear to be referable to the close of the cretaceous epoch, while 
those of the oast (Rajmehal) belong probably to the jurassic. 
The whole of the trap rocks which are used for building purposes are not, however, 
exclusively derived from the two above-mentioned sources. In many other of the recognised 
formations in India the trappean rocks occur as dykes; sometimes these are basaltic, but, in 
the older formations, diorites prevail. 
In the Dekan and Rajmehal areas, other rocks arc not altogether absent, as there arc 
not only the sedimentary, interstratified rocks above mentioned, but also, on the outskirts, 
the deeper valleys occasionally disclose rocks of older formations. 
