Chapter II. — Physical Geography of area. 

 Viewed in a geographical equally as in a geological light, the area 



occupied by the Vindhyan rocks, especially in their 

 Physical geography. , . . ,, , ^ „ 



eastern extension, is one well marked irom the sur- 

 rounding country, both by the greater general elevation of its plateau 

 and the clearly cut escarpments by which it is almost everywhere 

 bounded. 



Almost the entire drainage of the Sone and Nerbudda is derived from 



the south, for the northern watershed of these 

 Vindhyan escarpment. 



rivers is the crest of the Vindhyan range, which with 



a mean elevation of 1^500 to 2,000 feet runs for some hundred miles parallel 



and close to their main streams. The southern declivities are precipitous 



and abrupt, forming that long line of escarpment to which the name" 



'Vindhyan^ is more especially applied. To the north of the crest of the 



range stretch the table-lands and plains of Bundelkund and Boghelkund, 



which are sometimes found as elevated as that crest itself, but more 



commonly are reached by a glacis of moderate in- 

 Northern escarpments. 



cHnation. The northern faces are escarped very 



similarly to the southern, but the glacis is, on the whole, less prominent. 



The district of which we are speaking is naturally divisible into 



three so-called table-lands, each of which has for its 

 Plateaus. 



floor one of the three great sandstones of the forma- 

 tion, by the names of which, therefore, — Kymore, Rewah and' Bundair, — 

 the table-lands themselves may be conveniently distinguished. Commen- 

 cing our survey at the eastward, the escarpments are 

 Kymore plateau. 



ever3n5vhere bold and lofty, and the highlands west 



of Rotasghur have an elevation varying from about 1,000 to 1,400 feet. 

 Their surface is uneven, hilly and rocky, and covered with thick forest 

 jungle amongst whose glades are fed those herds of cattle which form the 

 chief wealth of the scanty inhabitants. The drainage, which here as else- 

 where is thrown north by the Vindhyan crest, falls by a series of waterfalls 

 ( 14 ) 



