90 KING: KADAPAH AND KARNÜL FORMATIONS. [PART 1. 
Further east, the trench-like valley ceases and the river again flows 
AM demone eor valleys somewhat like that to the west, as in 
ern. bend. the north and south elbow from Allotta; though at 
the end of this course it again flows in a cliffy sided trench previous to: 
debouching on the more open course through the Palnád. 
The annexed view (Fig. 2) is taken from the valley west of Allotta, 
and shows the rock-cut canal in the wider flood-water bed. 
The course of the river indicated in the sheet of the Indian Atlas is 
MRE wrongly delineated at several points; as, for ex- 
course of river. ample, around the Sreeshalum pagoda, and again 
in the long northern bend to the east of this. At Sreeshalum, the river 
is much nearer the pagodas than is shown in the map, being about three 
miles due west of the pagoda, and a mile and half east-north-east of it.* 
In the northern part of the northern bend, just before reaehing the 
Dindee river, the Kistnah is at least two miles further east than is 
shown in the map. 
The peculiarly angular course of the Kistnah through this mountain 
region is mainly due to its having followed the great lines of weakness 
in the rocks, viz., the east-west and north-south systems of joints: but 
the general course is in the axis of the trough of the plateau. ` 
This river comes down in flood during one period of the year, viz. 
from June to November, keeping at a tolerably 
lOO iE high level all this time : at least this was the 
account given by the people of the only permanent village on its banks, 
» 
* The late Captain Nelson (Madras Army), who attempted to settle and farm on the 
western side of the Kistnab-Nullamullays, and some of the Engineers of the Madras Irri- 
gation and Canal Company, had made excursions into the * unsurveyed and impenetrable 
tract? (of the map) previous to my journeys, when they noticed that the route of the river 
is certainly wrongly indicated in the Atlas sheet. The region is not at all impenetrable, 
but there'are no villages, and it is difficult to carry in supplies, or to use a horse,— W. K. 
(189) 
