'Transactions of the Bombay Geographical Society, from September 1850 to June 1852. Edited by the Secretary. Volume X.' [‎234] (367/458)

NOTES.
u The water that percolates through the roof of these caves in the lateriteh
often charged with iron, which it deposits in stalactitic, or botryoidal incrustations,
The same occurs on a much more minute scale in the smaller tubular and vesicular
cavities. Curious spheroidal, reniform, and cylindrical bodies, often as large as a
cocoa-nut, have been found in the laterite and mistaken for fossil seeds. Their
parietes are usually composed of gritty particles of quartz, often stained by iron,
cemented by a ferruginous matter: their cavities, often empty, usually contain an
ochreous, silicious, and argillaceous dust; as at Stripeimatoor, and Pondicherry.
u Associated Minerals.—Nodular, reniform, and pisiform clay iron ores occur
pretty generally distributed. I have discovered veins and nests of black manganese
in the laterites of Beder, Calliany, Ingliswara, &c., also alum, and muriate of
soda, in that of the Ceded Districts near Bellary ; large beds and nests of lithomak
gic earths, and white porcelain earths, are not uncommon. General Cullen
informs me he found a layer of lignite in the laterite of the western coast at Kor-
kully, about fifteen miles south of Quilon, imbedded in a stratum of dark shales and
clays. The bed was quite insulated, slightly inclined, and of a lenticular form,
'five or six feet thick at the most : the upper portion of the cliff, which is about
-eighty feet high, consists of the indurated dark red laterite, gradually changing, as
the depth increases from the surface, into bright and various colours: in these lower
'portions the bed of lignite occurs.
<( General Cullen recently writes me that lignite occurs in other localities in tbe
laterite of Travancore, and that graphite in scales seems to be rather common in
it ; chiefly conspicuous in the laterite about Travandrum and Quilon. It occurs
still further south in large and thick scales, and disseminated very generally also
in a kind of laterite close to the foot of the mountain, about twenty-five miles easj
of Travandrum.
“ In4840,1 discovered a bed of lignite with resinasphalfc, sulphur, alum, (tbo
result of decomposing iron pyrites,) and mineral copal, near Beypoor in the
vicinity of Calicut on the Malabar coast, iu a bed of loose sandstone, into which
the laterite passes, on the right bank of the river, immediately imbedded in layers
of black carbonaceous and aluminous shales and clays containing scattered spangles
of mica.
The beds dip conformably at an angle of four degrees towards the north*
cast. The lignite bed can be traced about half a mile easterly up the river where
it dips below the river s level. Its structure is obscurely stratified, crossed by
vertical fissures, surfaces of which are frequently covered with a yellowish efflore-
soence, consisting of sulphur, iron, and alumina; sulphur, and oxide of iron, also
occur uncombined. The carbonized branches, leaves, and trunks lay horizontally,
in the black shale. Some were fibrous, toughish when struck by the hammer, and
heavy, lesembling wood recently charred : others were brittle with a resinous
Aiacture of lustre, resembling bitumen. Many fragments were penetrated with
water, holding iron and alum in solution ; the former of which appeared on their
rf# o’ 3 ?
..era', sufhC ":
,t|le<to noUS ' •
invers of sha
(i The itnbedd
jo odour like th
grfienisli’grey em
t®ize<l wood bui
# those in w
p out any 'fl
emitted, however,
ider fused befo
iiioablack slag r
efflorescence on t
saipbr on being
•peons extricatioi
iereducing flame
* 8 '
it n
'file-change o
to develop
tr Wry obscn
exceeding
!lt of vegetal
^position
Since
,, 9 Writi ng
8 '^onaceo
•is itself
w beds
‘ ace s 200 f e(
“ fact, a u „
%. aK a
<dl Utth
■ ae Posu i
hunk.
se
“yled,
^ or
0 ^OUs
ra
of
Wo
Orisy;
tie
‘ron,
lle ' With ,