KALADGI SERIES. 89 



Ghatprabha, a little above the fall, is apparently about 350 yards across, but 

 contracts to 80 as the brink of the chasm is approached; consequently 

 the density and velocity of the watery mass is much increased, and it 

 hurries down the shelving tables of rock with frightful rapidity to its 

 ia\V " The fall over the face of the precipice seems slow and sullen 

 from the velocity of the surface water of this rapid and from the great 

 denseness of the body, and it plunges heavily down with a deep thun- 

 dering sound which we heard during the previous night at our encampment 

 three and a half miles farther down the river. This ponderous descent, 

 and the heavy, muddy color of the water, conveys a feeling of weight 

 through the eye to the senses, which is relieved by the lightness and 

 airiness of thin clouds of white vapour and amber-colored spray which 

 ascend from the basin at the bottom of the gorge in curling wreaths, 

 curtaining the lower portion of the fall, and through which the basin was 

 only seen at intervals when its surface was swept by the fitful gusts which 

 swept up the glen. The velocity of the water of the rapid was about 9 

 feet per second and its depth 10 feet. A tumblerful of the turbid water 

 deposited ^q"^ of its bulk of a fine reddish clay not calcareous.^^ Cap- 

 tain Newbold also mentioned what must have been a tremendous flood, 

 seven years previous to his visit, in which the water rose so high as to 

 submerge three of the flight of stone steps leading up to the largest 

 of the temples on the right, or south bank of the river. He also 

 alludes to some large fissures in the cliff forming the south side of the 

 gorge, which are really joint fissures, much enlarged by partial sliding 

 forward of the rocky masses. The small hiU seen in the background of 

 the view is part of the Deccan trap by which the quartzites are overlaid 

 a few miles to the westward. 



As Newbold pointed out, the rate of recession of the waterfall must, 

 in the case of such exceedingly hard rocks, be extremely small ; its anti- 

 quity must therefore be great, for there can be little doubt that the river 

 has cut all the narrow parts of the present gorge which extends fully a 

 mile backward from the general point of the scarp 



Tli6 CtoIcsiIc sc^ft) 



of the Gokak hills. This scarp, which may 

 M ( 89 ) 



