222 SEVENTH REPORT—1837. 
west of Poona, presents a perfect contrast to the last. It is 
level for twenty miles, running east and west to the very edge 
of the Ghats; and a person can stand at the head of the. 
valley, upon the brink of a scarp, rising almost from the 
Konkun. Here, at the source of the river, it is nearly six 
miles wide. The river Under runs down the valley 150 feet 
below the level of the cultivated lands. 
If these valleys be valleys of excavation, the present rivers 
could scarcely produce such, were we to suppose their powers 
of attrition in operation from the origin of things even to the 
end of time ! 
Those of a fissure-like character might have resulted from 
the upheaving of the beds of trap from below the sea, and the 
consequent probable fracture of the surface; but the same 
explanation will not apply to those ‘valleys associated 
with the preceding, broad, flat, and margined by scarped 
mountains, which valleys are as wide at their origin at the 
crest of the Ghats, and at the sources of the rivers which run 
through them, as in any part of their length. 
Terraces.—As the rise from the Konkun to the Dukhun is 
by terraces, so the declination of the country eastward from the 
Ghats is by terraces ; but these occur at much longer intervals, 
are much lower, particularly in the eastern parts, and escape the 
eye of the casual observer. In the neighbourhood of Munchur, 
on the Goreh river, there are five terraces rising above each 
other from the east to the west, so distinctly marked that the 
parallelism of their planes to each other and to the horizon 
gives them the appearance of being artificial. An artificial 
character also pervades the form of many insulated hills; 
some of which, viewed laterally, appear to have an extensive 
table-land on the summit; but seen endways, look like trun- 
cated cones. Conoidal frusta, in the Gawelgurh range, have 
been already noticed. Other insulated hills are triangular in 
their superficial planes, as the forts of 'l'eekoneh (three-cor- 
nered) and Loghur. 
Escarpments.—Stupendous escarpments are occasionally met 
with in the Ghats. In these instances the numerous strata, in- 
stead of being arranged in steps, form a continuous wall. At 
the Ahopeh pass, at the source of the Goreh river, the wall 
or scarp is fully 1500 feet high; indeed, on the north-west 
face of the hill fort of Hurreechundurghur, the escarpment can 
scarcely be less than double that height. On the other hand, 
the steps are sometimes effaced, and a hill has a rapid slope. 
This originates in a succession of beds of the softer amyg- 
daloids, without any basaltic interstratification; their superior 
