152 Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. 



other countries in connection with similar natural phenomena; and 

 also to suggest to residents in India a line of inquiiy which has 

 perhaps hitherto not received the attention it deserves. 



The collection of such native opinions is not quite so easy as might 

 be supposed, because the majority of scientific writers rather avoid 

 reference to them, while the descriptions of non-scientific authors, 

 when dealing with them, often lack the precision which would justify 

 specific identification of the objects with which tbey maybe connected. 

 However, there are exceptions among both classes, and the stories 

 previously recorded, in addition to my own observations, have enabled 

 me to bring together a considerable number of these myths and their 

 explanations. 



I am tempted to add here in illustration of what has just been said, 

 as to non-scientific observations, that I remember hearing a well-known 

 traveller inveighing at a meeting of the British Association against our 

 system of education, which allowed travellers like himself to go forth 

 unprovided with the means of explaining the phenomena they 

 encountered, and by way of example he mentioned several subjects, 

 not in themselves really difficult of explanation, which had puzzled 

 him, but regarding which he could only give the native accounts 

 without any attempt at rational elucidation. 



Volcanoes. 



Although peninsular India affords evidence of vast volcanic 

 activity in long past geological times, there is no trace in it at present, 

 from and including the Himalayas to Cape Comorin, of any volcanic 

 centre which has been in active operation since early tertiary or late 

 cretaceous times. For more recent manifestations we must pass from 

 the peninsula to the Islands of the Bay of Bengal, and to the regions 

 on the mainland, further eastwards, within the limits of Burmah. 



But before passing to these more recent sites, we may well pause 

 to say a few words in reference to the phenomena in connection with 

 the earlier activity to which reference has just been made. Through- 

 out an area of some 200,000 square miles, in "Western India and the 

 Central Provinces, together with a not inconsiderable outlying tract 

 of strata of possibly somewhat earlier age, in Bengal, namely, the Raj- 

 mahal Hills, the prevailing rocks are wide-spread flows of basalt, which 

 extend with marvellous uniformity in thickness over wide areas. In 

 some localities this Deccan trap, as it is commonly called, flowed over 

 beds which had been deposited on the surface oi previous flows, 

 during their submergence under lakes or the sea ; and, as a result, we 



