156 On the Granite formation 



" summer clouds, and we can then trace along their sum- 

 " mits the appearances of castles, trees, men, and various 

 " fantastic groups. Many of the hills have the appearance 

 " of collections of large fragments of rocks thrown con- 

 " fusedly together by some convulsion of nature ; while fre- 

 " quently larger masses, piled with great regularity on each 

 " other, look like the gigantic remains of Cyclopean archi- 

 " tecture. Huge insulated masses, forming considerable 

 " hills, in many instances, rise abruptly out of a plain, to a 

 " height of several hundred feet, and present nearly per- 

 " pendicular faces on several of their sides : thus affording 

 " situations of immense strength, which have almost invari- 

 " ably been taken advantage of by the natives for the erec- 

 " tion of forts ;" — and it is from this that the Barramahal 

 takes its name ; twelve of the highest, most smoothly scarped 

 eminences having been selected for the erection of fortifi- 

 cations, which garrisoned by a few determined troops might, 

 even without the aid of artillery, defy the efforts of an 

 army. In these a set of marauding ruffians had formerly 

 established themselves, desolating the surrounding country 

 by their depredations, until it became abandoned to the 

 tiger and the elephant ; and where the latter held their 

 undisputed sway until the British rule, by suppressing the 

 petty chieftains, gave the jungle again to the axe of the 

 ryot, and the arable land to his fertilising plough. 



When attentively considered, the appearance of granite 

 hills may be particularized as follows : — the first and most 

 striking is the Mamillar, or dome-shaped form. — In the Bar- 

 ramahal this is very common, the eminences are of immense 

 size, some rising as high as 1400 feet above their bases, con- 

 sisting of one solid mass of granite. The second is that of 

 a loose pile of globular masses, thrown apparently together 

 by chance. Some of the masses are sometimes of very great 

 size, nearly 50 feet in diameter occasionally, and as they re- 

 pose the one upon the other, rising at a high angle to a great 



