KHASI HILLS. 155 



feet from the bottom of the undulations in the ground below. Round 

 its base some large and fine piue and other trees cluster, the dark 

 foliage of which contrasts beautifully with the naked and weather-beaten 

 face of the rock itself. This very remarkable rock is one mass of hio'hly 

 crystalline granite, rising from the rounded knolls 



Structure, &c. 



of the gneissose country around. To the West, 

 judging from the immense blocks which are strewed over the surface, 

 the granite would seem to extend ; but on the South, the East, and the 

 Northern sides, the bedded gneiss and slates encompass it. It appears 

 to be in fact an exhibition by nature on a gigantic scale of a phenomenon 

 similar to that which may be seen throughout the entire of the granitic 

 area, and to which we referred above, namely, the occurrence of those 

 huge blocks of rock imbedded in, and of a similar character to, the mass, 

 though much more highly indurated. The Kullong rock would seem to 

 be a monster exhibition of the same fact, which no human hands have 

 exposed, but which the action of natural causes, continued for ages, has 

 laid bare, (a) 



In the same parallel with the Kullong, and to the East, granite 

 occurs cutting through, disturbing, and altering 



Grauits near Laidom. . . 



the slates in junction with it, near the village of 

 Laidom. This exhibition of it is interesting from the fact of the outlier 

 of tertiary sandstones which occurs here, resting quite undisturbed 

 and horizontally upon the granite, as well as on the adjoining slates, the 

 surface of both having been planed down to the same general level 

 prior to the deposition of the sandstone upon them. The granite is 

 seen at both sides of the isolated cap of sandstone. 



(a) As miglit be expected with a tribe whose prayers are chiefly, if not solely, offeri-d 

 up to avert the wrath of spirits, whom they imagine to dwell in woods and rocks, tliia 

 Kullong is asserted to l>e the abode of a powerful demon, whose enmity a Khasi dreads much 

 .to evolce. 



H 



