154 Mr Caldcr on the Geology of' India. 



dicular masses of a tabular form, or in mural terraces piled on 

 each other, and frequently separated by immense ravines ; the 

 whole clothed with luxuriant forests of teak and other trees, 

 producing some of the most beautiful and romantic scenery of 

 India. The elevation of this part of the xange seldom exceeds 

 3000 feet ; but, advancing to the south, its height gradually in- 

 creases, and the granite rocks begin to reappear, continuing to 

 form the summit of the chain, with httle interruption, all the 

 way to Cape Comorin. In nearly the same parallel of latitude, 

 this trap formation is observed to terminate also on the sea-coast, 

 a little to the north of Fort Victoria or Bancoote, where it is 

 succeeded by the iron-clay or laterite (a contemporaneous rock 

 associating with trap), which from thence extends, as the over- 

 lying rock, with little interruption, to the extremity of the pe- 

 ninsula, covering the base of the mountains, and the whole of the 

 narrow belt of low land that separates them from the sea, exhi- 

 biting a succession of low rounded hills and undulations, and 

 reposing on the primitive rocks, which occasionally protrude 

 above the surface, as at Malwar, Melundy, Calicut, and some 

 other points, where granite, for a short space, becomes the sur- 

 face-rock. From the main land the laterite passes over into 

 Ceylon, where it reappears, under the name of Kuhooky and 

 forms a similar deposit of some extent, on the shore of that 

 island. Passing onward from the western or Malabar coast, 

 round the extremity of the peninsula, we leave this extensive 

 iron-clay formation behind, and, crossing the granite plains of 

 Travancore, which are strewed with enormous blocks of primi- 

 tive rocks, we arrive at the termination of the chain. Here the 

 mountain-ranges, which support the central table-land, meet 

 from both sides of the peninsula, and converge to a point, within 

 about thirty miles of Cape Comorin, ending abruptly in a bluff* 

 granite peak of about 2000 feet high, from the base of which a 

 low range of similar rocks, forming a natural barrier to the 

 kingdom of Travancore, extends southward to the sea. The 

 whole of this western mountain range, and the narrow coast 

 which lines its base, is remarkable for the absence of rivers and 

 valleys of denudation, and consequently of alluvial plains or 

 deposites. The abrupt precipitous sides of the mountains, rising 

 almost perpendicularly from the sea, are nevertheless covered, in 



