Geology of' the Meyioar District. 123 



Cheetore ; a cily which the natives beheve to be impregnable ; 

 and into which no stranger is permitted to enter without per- 

 mission from the Ranah. It is situated on a tabular shaped 

 hill, about 500 teet high, detached from the great chain, and 

 surrounded by a plain where clay-slate is seen in the ravines 

 and low situations, with the limestone resting upon it. The 

 plain on the summit of the hill, and on which the city is situ- 

 ated, is said to be fourteen miles in circumference ; its breadth 

 varying from a quarter of a mile to half a mile. It runs in a 

 direction nearly parallel to the chain, that is, from noi-th to south. 

 It is surrounded by a perpendicular escarpment, which rises 

 from the slope of the hill in the same manner as Salisbury 

 Craigs does near Edinburgh. This escarpment forms a natural 

 fortification, which surrounds it on every side, except towards 

 the south, where its place is supplied by a strong wall, with 

 buttresses, &c. Besides this natural fortification, there is an ar- 

 tificial wall skirting the summit, where the crags are low ; and up- 

 on the whole, this place must have merited the appellation of im- 

 pregnable, at the time it was in its glory, and when native armies 

 alone were opposed to it. The slope of the hill consists of clay- 

 slate of an earthy friable appearance ; and which splits into very 

 thin slates. From its easily disintegrating nature, it affords a 

 soil, on which grow a profusion of trees ; among which the ta- 

 marind is conspicuous. Ths summit of the hill is composed of 

 waved strata of quartz rock, which rest immediately on the clay- 

 slate, and the exposed ends of which form the escarpment or crags 

 described above *. The following are the varieties which were 

 observed in the quartz rock, — a pure white, fine granular variety; 

 a coarser grained reddish and brownish variety ; and a third, 

 containing minute grains of reddish felspar. 



The only other formation which I observed in this neighbour- 



" The whole of this paragraph of Mr Hardie's paper has been necessarily 

 much abridged. It is not very evident from his manuscript, whether or not 

 the strata of quartz rock are conformable to the strata of the subjacent clay- 

 slate. It is not improbable that this rock is exactly the same as some of the 

 varieties of the old red sandstone, described by Dr Turnbull Christie as oc- 

 curring in the Southern Mahratta Country, for it agrees with them very 

 closely in its mineral characters and geognostical position ; and moreover, we 

 are informed that the same sandstone formation occurs in the Vindhya 

 range, which is close upon Meywar. Vide Dr Turnbull Christie's paper in 

 the la.sl number of this Journal. 



