16 CRETACEOUS EOCKS OF S. INDIA. [PaRT I. 



Chapter II. — General description of country. 



The tract of country, the Geology of which is described in the foUow- 

 Physical features of the ii^g P^ges, is a portion of the great plain which ex- 

 tendsalong theEast Coast of Southern India between 

 the Bay of Bengal and the hill country of the interior. With reference 

 to its physical position, it is termed the Payen Ghat, or " country below 

 the Ghats," and is included in the political division of the middle Carnatic. 

 It will be seen on reference to the map of India* that the great escarp- 

 ment known as the Eastern Ghats, which bounds 

 Eastern Ghats. 



the elevated plateau oi Hyderabad and Mysore, 



trends off in a South-westerly direction from the neighbourhood of 

 Vellore, and finally terminates in the Nilghiris.-f- It must be 

 remarked that although the term escarpment is here, as elsewhere, 

 frequently used in speaking of the Eastern Ghats, it is only admis- 

 sible, if we regard them as a great physical feature of the Penin- 

 sula, and as indicating the rapid rise of the country which divides 

 the plains of the Eastern Coast from the plateaux of the interior, and it 

 must not be inferred that there exists only a single well defined scarp 

 similar to that of the "Western Ghats, along the whole or indeed the greater 

 part of their extent. Their southern portion is either broken into two or 

 more minor escarpments, as in the Baramahal, or lost in the groups of 

 lofty hills which fall away in both directions and conceal the difference 

 in elevation of the tracts of comparatively level country on their opposite 

 flanks. And even where a true escarpment exists, it forms but a 

 small portion of the actual total rise of the country. The Eastern Ghats 

 are further interrupted by the valleys of all the principal rivers of the 



* The Indian Atlas maps on the scale of 4 miles to the inch give a very clear idea of 

 the minor physical features of the country. Sheets 60, 61, 62, 78, 79, and 80 exhibit the 

 whole of the coiintry here briefly alluded to. 



f See Keport on Geology of the Nilghiris. Memoirs, Geological Survey of India. Vol. I., 

 page 211. 



