GENERAL DESCRIPTION, 3 



Doranal and Rapur passes, and by a third along the valley of the 



Swarnamukhi. A great canal connecting Madras with Cocanada, a 



distance of nearly 400 miles, traverses the country by a system of salt 



and fresh water lagoons extending from the Pulicat lake nearly parallel 



to the coast. The sea-board, though quite unsheltered, and dangerous at 



its southern end, where it is marked by a small light-house opposite the 



great Armogamor shoal, offers anchorage to occasional vessels at Ramia- 



patam and Kristnapatnam at the proper seasons. 



The climate is a hot and dry one for most parts of the year, the 



effects of the south-west monsoon being only 

 Climate. . . . 



felt slightly on this side of the Peninsula, while the 



north-east rains do not generally last more than a month in any force, 

 though the wind blows strongly for a longer time. During the former 

 monsoon the two main rivers are down in flood, especially the Penner, 

 whose waters are, however, retarded by a dam or anicut near Nellore ; 

 and thus indirectly, and in the one case artificially, a, part of the country 

 is enabled to derive great benefit from the rains falling far to the west- 

 ward. At this season also, it often chances that the sand banks barring 

 many of the sea-outlets of the smaller rivers are eroded, when a refresher 

 is given to wastes of water which are too often liable to become 

 stagnant. 



With such a climate and because the soils are generally poor, the 

 country is not naturally a very fertile one, the 

 wilder parts in the neighbourhood of the western 

 hill-ranges being covered merely with low tree and scrub jungle, while 

 the cleared ground, except near the numerous artificial tanks or alongside 

 the rivers, is only favourable to dry graiu crops, and those not very rich 

 ones. The soil is often largely impregnated with soda, and the water- of 

 most of the streams, the Penner excepted, are also much charged with 

 this mineral, for which reason much of the alluvial deposits bordering 

 the coasts are very poor. The soils of the Penner valley and delta are, on 

 the other hand, formed of deposits brought down from distant fields of 

 rock and cotton-soil, giving much more fertile sediment. The fringe of 



( HI ) 



