Mr. Fraser's Journey from Delhi to Bombay. 155 



not many miles in extent, and not more than from 150 to 200 feet high_, prin- 

 cipally composed of a cellular clayey brown iron ore ; which varies much 

 in hardness, inclosing masses both of soft unchanged clay, and hard no- 

 dules and veins of a highly metallic character. To the southward of this 

 place, the strong tinge indicating the presence of much iron is no longer 

 observed ; and the country is exactly like what has already been described, 

 the whole way to the cantonment of Mow, only sixteen miles from Jam-ghat. 

 There are in this tract several basins, as it were, of a fine grey clay : and in 

 one of the most extensive of these is situated the city of Oogen, of which the 

 fable is told, that it was overwhelmed by a shower of cold earth. But there is 

 not in the place itself, or in the vicinity, any reason to suspect the former 

 occurrence of any convulsion of nature from which the fable may be supposed 

 to have originated ; every thing, on the contrary, indicating that the old city 

 has merely experienced that gradual decay which has swept from the face of 

 the land so many Indian cities of celebrity and grandeur, the vestiges of which 

 are now seen only in heaps of rubbish similar to those found in old Oogen. 



It has been already stated that the table-land of Malwa sinks abruptly to the 

 bed of the Nurbuddah, — or rather to the valley of Nemaur, in which that river 

 runs. This range of ghats forms the southern boundary, if not the whole 

 mass of what are known by the name of the Vindhya mountains. Their peaks 

 rise but little above tlie level of Malwa ; but there is a chain or succession of 

 such peaks along that part of the mountains which eame under our view in 

 the course of our journey ; and the abrupt face of this mountainous barrier 

 exhibits perhaps as perfect and interesting a specimen of the formation of the 

 country as can any where be seen. The upper part, for several hundred feet, 

 is almost perpendicular; and even below this, though the slope is more 

 considerable, yet the angle of elevation is very great. On the face of the 

 hill thus exposed, to the depth of full 1500 feet, are seen numerous strata, 

 strictly parallel, and running in a horizontal direction, which appear to con- 

 sist alternately of rock and soil, or at least of harder and softer rock, and 

 on inspection prove to be the common black basalt and amygdaloid. Therie 

 are fifteen or sixteen such strata distinctly to be reckoned. This amyg- 

 daloid is plentifully studded with zeolite, in masses of various shapes, and 

 generally coated with green earth, which is sometimes of considerable 

 thickness, at others merely superficial. The amygdaloid itself is of various 

 degrees of hardness; from that of stone fit for building, to a soft, decom- 

 posing, almost eartiiy mass. It appears as if the rock cracked by exposure 

 to the air, that the corners then commenced mouldering off, and were suc- 

 ceeded by flakes, scaling off like those of an onion, and leaving the centre 



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