of course, represent the entire amount exacted from the ryots by the Kajis. But, even allowing for the perquisites and emoluments of the latter, the rent which the ryot has been paying must be very low. There is no police in Sikkim : no regular magistracy-no jail. If any person commits any very heinous crime, such as murder, he is apprehended by the village headman with the help of the villagers and taken to the Darbár. If his guilt is proved, he is sent across the frontier into Nepal, and never allowed to return. This kind of banishment is the highest sentence known in Sikkim, and there appears to be seldom any occasion for its enforcement. For lighter offences flogging is resorted to. To-day W. has to exercise his magisterial authority. Close to our camp at Seriong, there is a shop kept by a Marwari. The Marwaris, by the bye, are penetrating into Sikkim, now that the country has been taken under British protection. They are good traders, and in their strictly trading capacity they deserve every encouragement. But, as they are great usurers, their settlement in large numbers cannot but be regarded with apprehension. Throughout Sikkim the people are now very happy in their own way; but woe betide them if they once get into the clutches of the money-lending Marwaris! W., who identifies himself with the interests of the people, says he will protect the people against the usurers. It is to be hoped he may. To return from this digression. The shop mentioned above being in a very populous part of Sikkim, carries on a good business, and is the resort of various characters, which from the proximity of this place to Darjeeling must comprise not a few vagabonds. Two of these got hold of Nimdarji (W.'s interpreter) without any the least provocation, and hugged and shoved him most unceremoniously, not without detriment to various parts of his body. Nimdarji comes with a most rueful countenance and relates the story. We repair to the shop. W. holds an enquiry. Both of the culprits appear to be quite drunk. One of them was proved guilty by the unanimous testimony of eye-witnesses, including the shopkeeper, and he is sentenced by W. to flogging and confinement for the night. The flogging is done in our presence. East of Seriong fine dip-slopes are seen in the gneiss. October 3rd.-East of Seriong, at the monastery of Nobling, come upon mica schists exactly similar to those met with about Pemionchi. There can be little doubt that they are Dalings. They apparently pass under the gneiss with perfect conformity, both dipping westward, as they do west of Pemionchi. There are in these Dalings highly carbonaceous shales at places, as by the Rummam, near Gok. We halt just below Nobling, near a chait, to have a pull at the murwa, which has been brought for us by the Dewan's people from Chakang, whither we are bound to-day. Chakang is the seat of a Sikkimite nobleman of, I believe, a higher rank than the Kaji, named Parvu Dewan. He is away. His son receives us and takes us into his house, which is of the same type as that of the Yaugtang Kaji. We are taken into a room provided with an altar, and are treated to murwa, &c. Camp close to a school which has been established by Mr. Sutherland, of the Kalimpong Scotch Mission. This is the first attempt to spread education in Sikkim. Till now education was confined within the walls of monasteries. It was very exclusive, being imparted only to a few Bhot eea boys apprenticed to the Llamas, and was extremely narrow in its scope. Visit the Ratho copper mines in the afternoon. They occur in the valley of the Ratho, a tributary of the great Rangit. The ore appeared rather poor. I had, however, little time for examination. W. entertains the Dewan's wife at tea. October 4th.-This morning the wife of the Dewan, a Lepcha, with several female attendants comes to bid farewell. We are now on the border between Sikkim and Darjeeling district. The sal trees here are cut down to be made into charcoal for tea-gardens in the Darjeeling district. Hitherto the trees were recklessly cut down, and the revenue they yielded to the State was merely nominal. Under the new régime, however, the operation of the contractor's axe is to be restricted, and a proper price is to be paid for the trees felled. So W. goes to the sal jungles below Chakang, accompanied by a Paharia contractor, to inspect the forests, while I go down to Singla bazar. The path from Chakang down to the Rummam, a descent of over 3,500 feet, is in excellent condition, and could be ridden all the way. In the Rummam, Daling quartzites are seen with a high dip, very nearly vertical. The Rummam is crossed before its junction with the great Rangit by a substantial cane bridge. The rocks in situ by the side of the river are Daling quartzites and schists, but enormous masses of gneiss are found along the banks of the river, which must have been carried from some distance. I have already had something to say about the competency of such rivers as the Rangit and the Tista to transport these huge masses. Reach Darjeeling in the evening. The Salts of the Sambhar Lake in Rajputana, and of the Saline Efflores cence called 'Reh' from Aligarh in the N. W. Provinces; by H. WARTH, PH. D., Geological Survey of India. After having ascertained that the Sambhar Salt Lake contains borax (see Vol. XXII of the Records, Part 4, 1889), I was curious to find out if reh from the N. W. Provinces would not perhaps also contain this substance. I obtained some reh from Aligarh, and found that there is also borax present in this efflorescence. But, besides the borax, I was also able to prove iodine and bromine, which two are also present in the Sambhar lake. The sample of reh was very earthy. It yielded only 6.6 per cent. of dried extract. This extract consisted almost entirely of sodium carbonate, sulphate and chloride being present in lesser proportion. According to roughly approximate colour-tests, the dry extract of the reh contains O'I per cent. of crystallized borax; o'i per cent. of iodide, and somewhat less bromide than iodide. The Sambhar Lake salt mixture gave more bromide than iodide. I made a concentrated mixture of foreign salts by fractional crystallization of 5lb. of mother liquor from the Sambhar salt manufacture. In this, I was able to determine the potassium also quantitatively, Doubling my result on account of the loss which attended the crystallization, I make out about o'04 per cent. of potassium carbonate in the saline residue of the ordinary lake brine. I also examined the crusts (tapris) from the lake, which consist of about equal portions of sodium chloride, sulphate and carbonate, and found that on an average they did not contain more borax than the ordinary Lake brine residue. The residue of the ordinary brine of the Sambhar lake has, according to the foregoing, compared with the reh extract, more chloride, sulphate and biborate, less carbonate, less iodide; whilst the bromide is about the same in both. The occurrence of no less than six different salts in both the Sambhar lake and the reh, is a strong argument in favour of a similar origin of the Sambhar lake and the reh of the N. W. Provinces. They must both be considered as accumulations of saline matter derived from the drainage, through evaporation. At the same time, we may still allow the possibility of a special supply of chloride of sodium from some unknown or vanished rock-salt deposit to account for the excess of chloride in the Sambhar lake. Analysis of Dolomite from the Salt Range, Panjab; by H. WARTH, PH.D., Geological Survey of India. The Magnesian Sandstone of the Eastern Salt Range was first so called by Dr. Fleming. He analyzed a specimen from Jogi Tilla with the following results (see Wynne's Salt Range Memoir, page 88): Mr. Wynne assumed that the analyzed specimen was exceptionally calcareous and magnesian, and retained the name of Magnesian Sandstone. To remove the doubts which I had on the matter, I collected 40 specimens of the rock from Kheorah and the neighbourhood, taking care to get well over the outcrop. I pounded and mixed equal weights of these 40 specimens, and I used for analysis the mixture which represented a fair average of the whole rock. The result was as follows: The rock contains 77.6 per cent. of carbonates, and only 160 per cent. of silica. A portion of this silica is really present as clay in combination with alumina, and a further portion forms other silicates, so that the free silica, or sand, will not exceed 12 per cent. A rock which contains at most 12 per cent. of sand cannot be called a sandstone. It is therefore desirable that the name 'Magnesian Sandstone' should be replaced by another, such as 'Magnesian Limestone,' 'Nodular Dolomite,' or the like. Mr. Wynne refers more than once to the nodules which fill portions of the dolomite. They are lenticular, and somewhat concentrical. The mean length of the nodules is one inch, and the thickness about a quarter-inch. Layers with these nodules are nowhere entirely absent in this rock. I found them still in the Nilawan near Nurpur, where the rock is just thinning out to the westward. According to Wynne, the maximum thickness of the rock is 300 feet. Immense quantities of the débris of the rock are also scattered over the sides and the base of the Eastern Salt Range. The exposed surface of the rock, and of its débris, is always light-brown, or fawn coloured. This colouring is produced by the dissolving action of the rain and by oxidation. The water removes the carbonates of lime and of magnesia, and the coloured oxides of iron and of manganese remain on the surface. The fresh fracture. of the rock is usually grey, or even bluish, but the brown-coating makes it look from a distance like a ferruginous sandstone. The rock is well known as a good durable building stone. It dresses almost as well as a sandstone, and yet is far more durable than, for instance, the purple sandstone of the Salt Range. I have seen it last well in saline ground, where the purple sandstone gave way. As the railway may cause a more extensive use of the stone for buildings, it is so much more desirable that its composition should be known. Since writing the above I had an opportnnity of examining the typical specimens of the Dolomitic Sandstone Group, in the Museum of the Geological Survey, which were collected during his survey by Mr. Wynne. The specimens are No. 80.-White sandy dolomite: A. B. Wynne. No. 81-White dolomitic rock, oolitic: A. B. Wynne. A rough analysis gave the following results: The two first specimens are as pure dolomites as one could wish. The third specimen contains 61.6 insoluble matter, and may only just be called a sandstone because it is a little more than half-sand. It follows, therefore, that the group contains a layer or layers which may be called highly dolomitic sandstone, but other parts of the group are out and out dolo. mite. It is now a question which kind predominates, and I do not hesitate to say that the latter must predominate and are forming the chief bulk of the group, and more particularly of those outcrops which form the exposed crests of the Eastern Salt Range. The appellation of Dolomite would, therefore, still seem more correct for the whole group than that of Sandstone. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF INDIA DEPARTMENT. TRI-MONTHLY NOTES. No. 6.-ENDING 31ST JANUARY 1891. Director's Office, Calcutta, 31st January 1891. The staff of the Survey is at present disposed in the following parties : Madras Party.-R. B. FOOTE, F.G.S., Senior Superintendent, Cuddapah District. Burma Party.-THEO. W. HUGHES HUGHES, A.R.S.M., Superintendent, Tenas serim. FRITZ NOETLING, Ph.D., Palæontologist, Upper Burma. H. WARTH, Ph.D., Tenasserim. Punjab Party.-C. L. GRIESBACH, C.I.E., Superintendent, Miranzai Expe dition. C. S. MIDDLEMISS, B.A., 2nd Grade Deputy Superintendent, Hazara. Baluchistan Party.-R. D. OLDHAM, A.R.S.M., 1st Grade Deputy Superintendent. Sub-Assistant Hira Lal. Sub-Assistant Kishen Singh. Darjiling and Sikkim.-P. N. BOSE, B.SC., 2nd Grade Deputy Superintend ent. Bengal Coal-Fields.—T. D. La TOUCHE, B.A., 2nd Grade Deputy Superintendent, Daltongunj. Assam.-P. N. Datta, B.Sc., Assistant Superintendent. Head-Quarters, Calcutta.-The Director; T. H. HOLLAND, A.R.C.S., Assistant Superintendent, Museum and Laborator |