154 Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. 



generally. It is collected when, by evaporation and drought in the 

 hot season, the level of the water falls. ^ 



As is elsewhere the case, the true source of these basalt flows appears 

 to be quite independent of volcanic action in the ordinary sense of the 

 term. The material apparently flowed from reservoirs deep-seated in 

 the crust of the earth through long cracks or fissures, and without the 

 accompaniment of ordinary volcanic phenomena. Some of the layers 

 of basalt, partly perhaps in consequence of their constituents but 

 chiefly because they cooled down more slowly than others, have 

 assumed what is commonly known as a basaltic structure, and scenes 

 may be visited in several parts of India where the basaltic columns are 

 almost as strikingly developed as they are at the Giant's Causeway 

 and the Island of Staffa. In such localities the natives have not failed 

 to take advantage of the mystery attaching to the caves naturally 

 formed among these pillars, and have made them the subjects of myth 

 and the objects of pilgrimage. Many such sites have I seen in the 

 Rajmahal Hills, and in some of them I have been invited by the 

 guardian priests to remove my shoes when entering the holy ground. 

 "Whenever in such caves there happens to be a natural drip of water, 

 every drop is invested with mystical and curative properties if admi- 

 nistered to pilgrims through the intervention of the Erahmins. 



Eesides these nature-wrought temples there are those which by 

 means of incredible toil and labour have been excavated by past gene- 

 rations of men about 1000 years ago. Such are the temples of Elephanta, 

 on an island near Bombay, and those at Ellora, in Haidarabad, Deccan, 

 which extends for a mile and a quarter along the hillsides. These have 

 been carved out of the solid basalt by the hand of man (Buddhist, 

 Brahminical, and Jain), as well as the figures and decoration on the 

 walls, and the supporting columns of the roofs. "Well may the pre- 

 sent generation ascribe them to the anthropomorphic deities of formcir 

 times ; to them it seems incomprehensible that ordinary humanity 

 could have accomplished such extensive and laborious tasks. "V\^c 

 now know a good deal about these temples, and one of the principal at 

 Ellora, that called Kailas, a perfect Dravidian temple, measures inside 

 247 feet by 150 feet, and is in some places 100 feet high. It is highly 

 sculptured, both inside and out, the solid rock having been cut away, 

 both internally and externally, so as to isolate it from the hill. It 

 was executed in the 8th century, a.d.^ 



' Ayin Akbari, Gladwin, vol. ii., 1800, p. 59. 



^ Economic Geology of India, p. 493. 



■' Ferguson's History of Indian and Eastern Architecture, p. 334, 



