180 B. R. BranfiU — FhysiograjpJiical Notes on Tanjore, Sfc. [No. 4, 



is irrigated, and there is scarcely another acre of it that could be profitably 

 brought under irrigation. In addition to this, some 650 square miles of 

 undulating country, running 40 miles to the southward along the shore of 

 Palk's Bay to the Pambanar, the border of Shivagangai Zamindari estate 

 (Madura District), and extending 12 to 20 miles inland, also belongs to 

 Tanjore. But the scope of these notes does not embrace more than the 

 deltaic portion of Tanjore, the country to the south having been traversed 

 the previous season, and reported on. 



Although there are several places named " hill" (malai), or " mound" 

 (medu), there is nothing at all worthy to be called a hill, except the dunes 

 or sand hillocks along the sea-board, the height of which (at Negapatam) 

 barely attains an elevation of 50 feet above sea level, and a few insignifi- 

 cant sand-drifts in the E. N. E. corner of the delta, near the mouth of the 

 KoUadam river. 



The whole delta consists of an even plain of alluvial deposit contain- 

 ing a comparatively large proportion of sand and having a good slope of 3 

 or 4 feet per mile. The fall, however, decreases as the coast is neared to 2 

 feet per mile or less. The following particulars of slope are from the rail- 

 way levels of the South India Railway, according to which the bed of the 

 Kaveri for nearly one hundred miles, from Karur to within 30 miles of the 

 present coast line, has a pretty even fall of near 4 feet a mile. The next 

 10 miles the gradient decreases to about 3 feet per mile, and the next to 

 within 10 miles of the coast to 2 feet per mile. 



Continuing the examination of the declivity (by means of the recent 

 Government Hydrographic or Marine Charts), the fall of the ground out 

 at sea beyond the coast line increases in the first fourteen miles to 5 or 6 

 feet per mile, to 8 or 9 feet per mile for the next nine miles, to 24 feet 

 per mile for the next six, and to 38 feet per mile for the last ten miles 

 examined up to 37 miles from the coast. This rapid deepening of the 

 sea is a noticeable fact, but it seems only natural if the present coast line 

 is of purely fluviatile formation. 



The character of the alluvium alters and generally deteriorates in 

 fertility as the distance from the head sluices of the Kaveri channels 

 increases. It varies from a rich red or black loam to a pale sandy clay, 

 the sand increasing and the clay diminishing from west to east, and but 

 for the annual fertilizing floods would be anything but rich and productive. 

 Without artificial manure the land usually bears but one crop yearly. 



The sea-board flats are usually well raised above sea-level, and 

 further protected from high tides and storm waves by a high sand-ridge 

 along the coast. Cyclones have been frequent on the coast, but have not 

 made the great devastating inroads they appear to have made elsewhere 

 on the coast. The formation of this coast-ridge or sea-wall appears to be 



