26 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTEAL INDIA. 



itself, shedding au enormous number of seeds, at a 

 season (the commencement of the rains) when the usual 

 jungle fires have ceased, and which sprout almost imme- 

 diately on their reaching the ground. On the other 

 hand, the Teak seeds after the rainy season, and the 

 seeds themselves are covered by a hard shell, which 

 must be decomposed by long exposure to moisture and 

 heat before they will germinate. This necessitates their 

 exposure throughout one hot season, when the whole of 

 the OTass covering; the ground below is burnt in the 

 annual conflagrations. Thus a large percentage of the 

 seeds of the Teak never germinate at all. It is clear, 

 then, that if these two species were growing together, 

 on soil equally suitable for both, the Sal must possess 

 an immense advantaoe in the " struo^e-le for life" over 

 the Teak. And if to this natural advantage be added 

 an adventitious one, in the fact that the Teak is much 

 more generally useful to man — particularly to man in a 

 primitive state — as is really the case, there seems to be 

 a sufficient reason why the Teak should disappear before 

 its rival in tracts where the latter has obtained a footing 

 and is equally suitable to the soil and climate. Now an 

 examination of the tracts on which these trees are found 

 in Central India shows that, while the Teak does not 

 appear to shun any particular geological formation, it 

 thrives best on the trap soils which predominate in the 

 south and west of the province. But the Sal, on the 

 other hand, clearly shuns the trap formation altogether. 

 Not only is it unknown within the great trappean area 

 to the west of the eightieth degree of longitude, but 

 even to the east of that line, in its own peculiar region, 

 it does not grow where isolated areas of the trap rocks 

 are found. Further, I believe that in no part of India 



