J 877. J V. Ball— 0^ Oiant-Kettles (pot-Jioles) in India. 141 



cient to settle the question ; but as Dr. Feistmantel has expressed a doubt 

 regarding its correctness I purpose to give some evidence on the subject. 



My reason for taking upon myself this somewhat ungracious task, is 

 that the statements made in the paper appear to affect me slightly more 

 directly than they do most of my colleagues. Before my recently published 

 memoir on the Rajmahal hills went to press, Dr. Feistmantel described 

 to me the pot-holes he had observed in that part of the country. Appa- 

 rently he quite forgets that I told him that I had not only observed them 

 there, but also in many other parts of India. 



It would be very much easier to enumerate a list of places where pot- 

 holes are to be found in India than to produce a similar number of publish- 

 ed notices of them, simply because they have not been thought worthy of 

 mention. They are just the objects which would be likely to attract the 

 notice of an amateur, while weightier and more important phenomena were 

 left to explain themselves. It is no matter for surprise, therefore, that Dr. 

 Feistmantel should find a reference to an amateur who has mentioned 

 pot-holes, but it is very great matter for surprise that he should not have 

 very carefully examined the publications of the Geological Survey before 

 permitting himself to make the statements he appears to have made in 

 reply to Mr. Blanford. Two of the references I shall give are to papers 

 published since Dr. Feistmantel' s arrival in India. It is possible that the 

 Memoirs and Records may contain others, if they do not, it is for the 

 reason above given. Out of the Survey publications too, there are at 

 least two known references to the subject ; but I shall confine myself to 

 the officers of the Survey for affording evidence of the abundance and very 

 general distribution of Pot-holes in India. 



The first witness I propose to quote is Dr. Feistmantel himself. Since 

 his arrival in India he has on two occasions only made short tours in the 

 rocky districts of Bengal. On both these occasions he has, in totally different 

 formations, observed series of pot-holes which have supplied the text for 

 his paper. Yet in spite of this fact, and positive assurance to the con- 

 trary, he maintains that the phenomena must be of rare occurrence in India. 



Of published notices by officers of the Survey I only quote four, the 

 first two have been pointed out to me, the others were known to me for 

 reasons that will be obvious. In the Geology of Trichinopoly,* &c., by 

 Messrs. King and Foote, we find the following passage : " In the first small 

 nullah which runs under the high road about 1^ miles east of Yellum, and 

 reaches the low ground to the north of PuUayaputty, are several small 

 but well marked and instructive examples of pot-holes formed by the 

 grinding action of pebbles rapidly rotated by the eddies in the stream. 

 In several of the pot-holes the pebbles were still lying, the force of the 



* Memoirs, Vol. IV. p. 259. 



