02 
Records of the Geological Survey of India. 
[vol. v. 
is peculiar, and deserves more attention than it has hitherto received. Indeed, the whole 
estuarine fauna of the Indian backwaters and deltas has been but imperfectly worked out, 
and further information is extremely desirable, of the mollusca above all, for the illustration 
of the fossils ot the many deposits which have doubtless accumulated under very similar 
circumstances in past times. 
Tributary Mehals. 
Of the geology of the following states:— 
Moharbanj. Bodamba. 
Pal Lahara. Tigerea. 
Nursingpur. 
lying north of the Mahanaddi, and of all the states south of the Mahanaddi river, except 
Banki, viz .:— 
Boad. Nyagarh. 
Daspala. Ranapur. 
Kandapada. 
nothing whatever, delinitc, is known. 
It is pretty certain that a large proportion of their area consists of metamorphic rocks, 
and it is possible that no others may be found. 
Of Keunjur and Nilgiri, only the edges bordering on the Balasor district have been 
examined. Hurdole has been traversed, portions of Denkiual and Atmallik have been examined, 
whilst of Ongul, Talchir and the little estates of Atgarh and Banki, a somewhat more 
general survey has been made, still however far from complete or detailed. 
Nilgiri and Keunjur .—The hills bordering on Balasor consist entirely of metamorphic 
rocks of various kinds. In the northern part of the range gneiss is found, so granitic that 
the direction of the foliation can scarcely be ascertained. It appears to be nearly parallel 
with the escarpment of the range. 
Grairite veins are scarce, but green-stone dykes or pseudo dykes, many of them of great 
size, abound, and most of them, if not all, appear to be parallel with the gneissic foliation. 
This fact renders it probable that the dykes in question are really beds so altered as to be 
perfectly crystalline. 
A kind of magnesian rocks, intermediate in composition between potstonc and ser¬ 
pentine, approaching the former iu appearance but less greasy in texture, is quarried to some 
extent chiefly for the manufacture of stone dishes, plates aud bowls. These stones arc 
roughly cut into shape iu the quarry, and finished partly with tools, partly on a lathe in the 
villages. The rock employed occurs, interlbliatod with the gneiss, in several places, and is 
quarried at the villages of Santragodia and Gujadiha, a few miles south of Nilgiri, at a 
spot two or three miles from Jugjiiri, aud in scattered localities to the north-west. 
A few miles west-south-west of Jugjiiri, near Parkpada, the granitoid rocks arc replaced 
by a tough, hard, indistinctly crystalline, hornblendio rock resembling diorite, but exhibiting 
more foliation than is seen in the hills near Nilgiri. Still further to the south-west, quartz 
schist comes in, well foliated, occasionally containing talc. A detached hill near Bakipiir 
consists of this rock, and so does the whole south-west portion of the range as far as Rugadi, 
except in the immediate neighbourhood of the Salandi Naddi, where it leaves the hills. Here 
syenite occurs, and the same forms a detached hill near Darapur. The south-western portion 
of the range is free from the trap dykes, whicli are so conspicuous in the north-east of 
Jugjiiri. 
All the western portions of Keunjur are unexplored. 
