416 



Lieut.-Colonel Sykes on a portion of Dukhun. 



some instances the sharpness of the angles has been affected by weathering. The texture is 

 close-grained, colour almost black, and they affect the needle. 



At Jehoor, near the source of the Seena river, in an insulated hill, an obscure columnar disposi- 

 tion is met with in a rock, in which in other places I had not seen the slightest trace of it. A 

 stratum of red, cellular, amygdaloid fifteen feet thick has subcolumns in its exposed edges eight or 

 ten feet in diameter. In the banks of a water-course running into the Hunga river, half a mile east 

 of Parneir, on the elevated table-land between the cities of Ahmednuggur and Joonur, basaltic co- 

 lumns are very numerous ; they are five or six feet high, not articulated, and are not quite perpen- 

 dicular. This formation is evidently extensive, as the ends of columns, chiefly pentangular, appear 

 in the bed of the water-course for some distance, forming a pavement of geometrical slabs. The 

 ends of columns of different lengths also appear in the southern bank at intervals, forming flights 

 of steps. The basalt of which these columns are composed is very close-grained, almost black, 

 with shining specks of a metallic lustre. The rocky banks of the Kokree river at Jambut, in 

 the plain of Joonur, exhibit a strong inclination to a large columnar structure. In the hill fort of 

 Singhur, at an elevation of 41 62 feet, at the western end of the fort, there is a sheet of rock which 

 has the appearance of a pavement of pentangular slabs. The slabs are no doubt the terminal 

 planes of basaltic columns. The same is observed in the hill fort of Hurreechundurghur, about 

 seventy miles north of Singhur ; also in the bed of a water-course one mile north-east of Bar- 

 lonee, near the fortress of Purrunda, 112 miles east-south-east of Singhur ; and, lastly, in the bed 

 of the Mool river at Gorgaon, Poona Collectorate. These pavements extend to Malwa, as Captain 



Dangerfield mentions their occurrence in the beds 

 of the Chumbul and Nerbuddah (Nermada) ri- 

 vers*. The other localities of basaltic columns, or 

 a marked disposition to this structure, were in a 

 well at Kumlepoor, between the fortress of Pur- 

 runda and Barlonee, near the left bank of the Seena 

 river ; at Kheir Turruf Rasseen, in the face of a 

 headland, abutting on the Beema river, on which 

 the town stands ; in the ascent to the temple of 

 Boleshwur Turruf Sandus, Poona Collectorate ; 

 and, finally, in the scarps of a mountain running 

 down into the Konkun, and seen from the Naneh 

 Ghat, about three miles distant. Here the Giant's 

 Causeway in Ireland is brought to mind ; but the 

 scale of the mountain is infinitely more magnifi- 

 cent, being fully 4000 feet high. There is a dou- 

 ble row of columns ; but from their inaccessible 

 situation, I could only examine them through my 

 telescope, and cannot testify, therefore, to their 

 perfect development; but the accompanying sketch 

 will give a just idea of their appearance to me. 

 Captain Dangerfield only once speaks of columns. They lie about a mile from the Ner- 

 buddah (Nermada), between Mundleysir and Mhysir, at 696 feet above the sea : they are either 



* Malcolm's Central India, Appendix, pp. 329, 330. 



