Description of the Falls of Gersuppah. 243 



and pleasing combination to the aspect. Five separate bodies 

 of water are hurled down this stupendous pool, the largest, at 

 the N. E. angle, tumbles perpendicularly with its foaming cur- 

 rent from the edge of the river, already described, clear to the 

 bottom, in two distinct columns. At the next curve, and fa- 

 cing the position where we had a bird's-eye view of the whole, 

 another large mass is seen to be propelled headlong ; then 

 aslant the hollow channel it has formed, and gradually en- 

 larging its surface in its descent, is buried in the boiling 

 depth in union with the other. A more gentle rill, passing 

 immediately over the second fall, makes a striking variety to 

 the rush of its noisy neighbours. The fourth cascade is more 

 distinctly observed, without the same exertion, in its southern 

 direction, skirting the rocky steep of this enormous basin, and 

 being expanded by the obstruction it meets from some project- 

 ing irregularities of stone. Hundreds of pigeons, about the 

 size of butterflies, were sporting over the spray. We had to 

 move round to a rising mound at the south-west corner, where 

 the precipitated floods flow oft', to be enabled to have a full 

 view of the fifth fall, whose rolling foam, like soap-suds, 

 edging from the summit to the termination of a solid mass of 

 laterite, of several hundred feet in altitude, flashes through 

 scattered fragments that lie rounded at its agitated base, and 

 seek their repose in the general outlet. On the right rise 

 the stupendous bulwarks of the western Ghauts, towering in 

 the pride of their primeval magnificence. Several attempts 

 were made to ascertain the depth of this wonderful reservoir : 

 one by letting out strong twine, to which a weight was sus- 

 pended, but this plan did not succeed after 300 or 400 feet ; 

 so another experiment was resorted to, and frequently re- 

 peated, of throwing down a cocoa-nut, and timing it as long as 

 it continued visible, which always gave the same result of 

 eight seconds ; and by my calculation, computing the centri- 

 petal force of the falling body to be at the rate of 1 5-Jj- Paris 

 feet in a second of time, and increasing in proportion as the 

 square of the distance, I make to be from my product, 965J, 

 or about 1030 English feet, as far as I think it possible to 

 ascertain it with any degree of accuracy. 



"The falls of Niagara, of the Montmorency, the Missouri, 

 and Tuccoa, are remarkable for the vast expanse of the falling 

 sheets that are precipitated down them ; but their height, in 

 proportion is very insignificant, with the exception of the first : 

 neither do the celebrated falls of Gocauk, in Beejapoor, or 

 that of Courtallum, in the district of Madura, exceed 200 feet 

 in their descent ; from which comparison it may be seen that 

 those of Gersuppah are not unworthy of being recorded among 

 the ' wonders of the world.' " — Asiatic Journal, vol. xxviii. 



