Some Accrnint of the Caves near Bang. 109 



Jassoo Baumeah becoming by his bold depredations, which ex- 

 tended not only into Malwa but even to the Deckan and Guzerat, 

 so formidable as to excite the serious attention of the Mahratta 

 princes, he was besieged by a large army during forty days in the 

 fort of Kooksee; at the end of which period, finding the place 

 no longer tenable, he made his escape to Baug. To this last 

 place he was pursued, and again besieged ; but not being able 

 there to make any stand, he retired to the mountains, from which 

 period nothing further of him is known. His couiitiv was di- 

 vided among the conquerors; Baug, with its dependent villages, 

 falling to the share of Scindiah, to whom it still belongs. 



The jungle for some distance round Baug is very open, and 

 the hills do not rise to any considerable height, seldom exceeding 

 one hundred and fifty or two hundred feet. They appear for 

 the most part to be composed of the floetz and transition rocks, 

 chieflv trap and flint slate; and both these and the valleys abound 

 with iron ore, the brown ironstone, and clay ironstone. 



There are at this place some iron works on a small scale, con- 

 sisting of three smelting furnaces and three forges ; giving em- 

 ployment to twenty-four blacksmiths, and many men, women 

 and children, in transporting, pounding, and sifting the ore, 

 which produces about fifty or sixty per cent, of iron of an indif- 

 ferent quality, chiefly arising from the imperfect fusion and 

 forging of the metal. It is at once wrought into ploughshares 

 weighing about two pounds each. From the little demand, how- 

 ever, the ore is only wrought about three or four months in the 

 year. Each forge pays forty rupees to Government. 



The whole of the alluvial soil, which on the hills seldom ex- 

 ceeds six feet in depth, is for ten or twelve miles round Baug 

 strongly coloured with oxide of iron. 



On leaving Baug to visit the caves, you proceed for three miles 

 along the high road to Kooksee, when turning to the left, a small 

 footpath, after a quarter of a mile, leads you across the Waugrey 

 river to the hills in which these caves are cut, and which rise 

 close to the left bank of that river. 



This range of hills docs not exceed in height one hundred and 

 fifty feet, having a direction nearly N.N.E. and S.S.W., the en- 

 trance to the caves facing the westward. The lower half of the 

 hill is sloping, but steep; the upper perpendicular. The hill in 

 which ihese caves are excavated is composed entirely of hori- 

 zontal strata of sandstone and claystone alternating with each 

 other. 



The sandstone, which has an argillaceous cement, is coloured 

 with oxide of iron varying from the deep red to perfect white. 

 With its colour vary also its hardness and the fineness of its 

 grain, the dark red being fine-grained and tolerably liard, the 



whitr 



