2 SINGHBHOM
cut, and the hill-sides are rapidly becoming bare and rocky. Among
the mountains the scene~y is often beautiful. The mountains west
of Chaibasa form the atershed which drains north-eastwards into
south and west into the BRAHMANI river.
flows through the whole length of Dhalbhum,
he Sanjai, which drains Porahat, Kharsawan,
kai rises in Mayurbhanj State, and with its
affluent the Raro, on whose bank Chaibasa town is situated, drains
the north of the Kolhan, and after passing through Saraikela, joins its
waters with the Sanjai. The Karo and the Koel rivers drain the west
of the District, and flow westwards into the Brahman! river, which they
join in the Gangpur State! The beds of all the rivers are strewn with
boulders, which impede t}avigation, and the banks are generally steep
and covered with scrub ju'hngle ; but alluvial flats are deposited in some
of the reaches, where vegetables and tobacco are grown. The Phuljhur
river bursts out of Ranchil District into Singhbhum in a cascade which
forms a pool supposed to be unfathomable, and is the subject of
various legends; similar !pools in the Baitaran! river on the borders
of Keonjhar are held sacred, and at one about a miles from Jaintgarh
Brahmans have established a shrine, where Hindu pilgrims bathe.
The District is occupied almost entirely by the Archaean group,
a vast series of highly altered rocks, consisting of quartzites, quartzitic
sandstones, slates of various kinds, sometimes shaly, mica-schists,
metamorphic limestones, ribboned ferruginous jaspers, talcose and
chloritic schists, the last '!passing into potstones, basic volcanic lavas,
and ash-beds mostly alteiled to hornblendic schists, greenstones, and
epidiorites. East and south of Chaibasa there is a large outcrop of a
massive granitic gneiss, re, embling that of Bundelkhand, and traversed
in the same way by huge dikes of basic rocks. Laterite is found in
many places. In the east it largely covers the older rocks and is in
its turn concealed by alluvium I'.
Singhbhum lies withithe zone of deciduous-leaved forest and
within the Central India s l tract, with a temperature attaining 115' in
the shade, and mountains rising to 3,000 feet with scorched southern
slopes and deep damp valleys : its flora contains representatives of dry
hot countries, with plants~ characteristic of the moist tracts of Assam.
On . rocks, often too hot I to be touched with the hand, are found
Euphorbia Nfvulta, Sarc~stemma, Sterculia urens, Boswellia serrate,
and the yellow cotton-tr e (Cochlospermum Gossypium), while the
ordinary mixed forest of dray slopes is composed of Anogeissus latifolia,
Ougeiuia, Odina, CleistantAzus collinus, Zizyphus xylopyrus, Buchanania
latifolia, and species of Tei-minalia and Bauhinia. The sdl varies from
the SUBARNAREKHA and
The Subarnarekha, which
receives on its right bank
and Saraikela. The Ko
Memoirs, Geological Survey of India, vol. xviii, pt. ii; and Records, Geological
Survey, vol. iii, pt. iv, and vol. , Cxxi, pt. ii.
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