CHAP. 9.] PHYSICAL STRUCTURE. 23 
The remaining river of any importance is the Goondlacumma ; it 
vi o oi E. shows no particular features except perhaps in the 
great curves described in its course, being kept 
well to the west, after it has got into the depressions at the base of 
the Nullamullays, by the northern spurs of the Yellaconda which are 
gradually lowering down to the plains, and then, as soon as it is free 
of the low barrier, winding right round in an almost.opposite direction 
down to the Nellore coast. 
Notwithstanding such a fine river system, the whole country is a 
diy remarkably dry and arid one; and the influence of‏ ی 
dan man is gradually assisting to make it more so. 
There are only two large forest-regions of any note,—the one on the 
Nullamullays, the other in the southern part of the field, well to the 
south-east of the Cuddapah basin; while even in these regions the 
forest 1s not marked by any great size of the trees, or denseness of 
vegetation, except in partieular plaees where there happen to be small 
Fertility of the high perennial springs of water. Over all the other 
pum ranges of hills there is a low and thin growth of 
jungle, showing that there is evidently every tendency, if nature were 
only allowed to have her own way, to a growth of low forest; but this 
is frustrated every season by reckless wood-cutting. The lithological 
constitution of the hill ranges is, however, at the same time against 
any very great spread or richness of vegetation. 
All the low grounds are extensively cultivated, and at the proper 
season of the year are covered with the most 
ea TS luxuriant crops of gram (sometimes varied with 
indigo) or cotton. In fact, the strange feature of a country being a 
desert at one time of the year and a garden at another is typically 
exemplified over these low grounds. The great central hollow or valley 
of the Khoond-air with the Cuddapah basin shows these extremes 
E ) ۵۵ ( 
