1835.] Geology of the Bombay Islands. 331 



a few nodules of quartz) over which the surf beats high and 

 renders landing dangerous, although it forms one of the 

 few situations in these islands, where boats can reach the 

 shore without grounding. 



Near this landing place is a Portuguese ruin, situated on 

 a knoll, and adjoining it, we discover the extraordinary 

 artificial figure from which the island derives its European 

 name, for its Hindoostani name is Gallipooti. The animal 

 represented by this sculpture is evidently an elephant, fully 

 equal to the natural size, and, upon the whole, well executed. 

 The trunk and head have been separated from the body, 

 and lie fractured and prostrate on the ground. Considerable 

 damage has been done to other parts of the figure, for the 

 instrument of which we must have recourse to the tradition 

 current in that neighbourhood, which states that the Portu- 

 guese went so deliberately to work as to employ cannon in 

 effecting their barbarous work of destruction, from the idea, 

 as we have shewn, of extirpating superstition ! The rock of 

 which the figure consists is a very hard basalt, (No. 2.) 

 containing a few minute cavities, scantily supplied with 

 mineral crystals, and is of the same nature as the rock of 

 the adjoining hillock. From this spot the ascent of the 

 western hill is pretty easy, the pathway leading along the 

 bed of what constitutes a torrent during the wet season, 

 formed in the porphyry and amygdaloid, and runs to a 

 considerable depth ; a kind of natural walls rising up on 

 each side, which are overshadowed by carissa bushes 

 (Carissa carandas,) agnus castus # ( Vitex trifolia,) the 

 garruga tree (Garruga pinna ta,) with its abundant fruit 

 hanging in clusters, like the produce of the vine and castor 

 oil tree (Ricinus communis,) while the soil is ornamented 

 with the solanum (Solanum Jacquini,) and the Mexican 

 Argemone f (Argemone Mexicana.) About half way up 



* The leaves of this shruh are employed by the Hindoo women in some religious 

 ceremony, as I found a quantity deposited on the convex stone in the lateral 

 square compartment of the great temple. 



t The occurrence of this plant, (a native of the New World,) wherever the 

 Portuguese have formed settlements, is a striking instance of the agency of man 

 in the distribution of vegetable species. In addition to the habitat here given, I 

 have observed it at Malabar Point in Bombay Island ; on the Island of Coulaba; 

 and at the south end of the town of Macao, in China, in all of which localities it is 

 an abundant plant, affording a parallel case with that of the Chenopodium ambro- 

 sioides, (cited by Lyell, vol. ii. p. 83.) which we observe so abundantly in the 

 Island of St. Helena. 



