LIMESTONE occurs abundantly in many parts of the E. Indies, in the form of nodular masses, also as a compact stone and granular as marble, rarely as chalk. There is much granular marble in the Tinnevelly district in the south of the Peninsula of India, both pure white and veined. The marble rocks of the Nerbadda river, below Jubbulpur, are also famed, and marble is found and largely worked in Burma. Chalk is rare in India, but a nodular limestone called kankar occurs in the black soil throughout British India. Compact limestone occupies great districts,— much of the valleys of the Godavery, Kistna, Tumbudra, Gutparba, Malparba, and Bhima rivers. The great Buddhist st'hupa of Amraoti is of this marble. Between one and two hundred pieces of its sculptures were sent to England by the Editor, and are arranged against the wall of the great stair of the British Museum. The carvings are minute. Mr. Fergusson noticed them in his Tree and Serpent Worship. A limestone under lies the whole of the Kymore range in Shahabad, and it also shows itself along the valley of the. Sone as far at least as Mungeysur peak in Mirza pore. In some parts, as in Rohtas, it crops up .boldly to 200 or 300 feet, forming a sloping base to the precipitous sandstone rock. There appear to be three well-defined strata, viz. an upper one of a yellowish-blue mixed with dis integrated sandstone, iron pyrites, and chalk, all in thin plates. Below that again, a more bluish grey limestone, with occasional calc-spar crystals, is found, but generally of the same nature as the German lithographic stone. Under the aforesaid strata lies a very dense bluish-grey limestone mixed with veins of calc-spar. It is not used by native lime-burners, as being intractable. This is the lowest stratum, and would be an almost indestructible building or flooring stone, from its great hardness. Much harder than granite, and approaching to porphyry, it may be had in large blocks, and, if sawn into slabs, would be a very handsome building stone, bluish-grey with white streaks, and, moreover, it would probably make a superior kind of lime. Immense quantities of lime are made from the quarries of the western bank of the Sone, and exported down the Sone and the Ganges as far as Monghyr. Perhaps
300,000 to 400,000 tons are made annually, and the material is inexhaustible. The same limestone rock crops out on the northern face of the range, with intervals, between the Sone river and Mirza pore, and again, especially in the singular and interesting limestone caverns of Gupteswar, in the valley of the Durgowtee river, at Beetree Baud, in Khawah Koh, at Mussai, on the Sooreh river, and near Mirzapore. The cost of the lime at these quarries varies from 6 to 16 rupees per 100 maunds, or, say, 5s. to 14s. per ton.
Close to Jubbulpur is a range of low hills within a circumference of about 10 miles, inter spersed with masses of limestone both above and below the surface. In burning it for lime, the stone is broken into fragments of 6 to 12 inches in size, like a dome over a hole of about 9 feet diamet r dug in the ground, and a passage left for intro cing the fuel. ThiS kiln is kept burning continu for the whole of the day, and the lime removed o the following morning. The fuel is used in the p portion of 40 maunds to every 75 maunds of lim stone, and the yield is about 50 maunds of well-b arnt lime.
White saccharine marble 'occurs on the banks of the Nerbadda, at Bhera Ghat, near Jubbulpur, on the line of the railway to Bombay. It has been used in a limited degree at Jubbulpur, sometimes to make lime, and other times for metalling roads. It is made up into images by natives, but does not take a good polish. But a block was sent to the Paris Exhibition of 1855, and pronounced to be equal to Italian marble for statuary purposes.
The marble of which the images of Gautama are formed is a granular limestone, but are usually called alabaster images. It is a primi tive limestone abundant near Ava. All the lime stone of the Tenasserim provinces belongs to the older secondary formation. The limestone of Tavoy has a sp. gr. of 2.7, and is a perfectly pure, semi-crystalline carbonate of lime, akin to statuary marble. It is well adapted to act as a flux in the smelting of iron. The limestone of Mergui has a sp. gr. of 2/ ; it is a pure cal careous carbonate.—cal. Cat. Ex., 1862 ; Mason's Tenasserim ; Edward Balfour in Government Central Museum Records.