of Salem and Barramahal. 159 



ever shew the slightest sign of any decomposing action ; and 

 it is also an absurdity glaringly evinced in the convenient 

 way in which granite, by some writers, is made to decom- 

 pose into white kaolin, and by others, into ferruginous earth. 

 It is possible the soil may be derived from the decomposition 

 of a softer rock, formerly superposed upon the granite, and 

 from this it may be inferred that these granite hills have 

 once been covered to their summits, and have been gradual- 

 ly denuded by detrital action. The impossibility of referring 

 the denudation to diluvial action is apparently proved by the 

 soil, &c. having been left in its present situation, because 

 any violent action of this kind would have removed it. 



A very uncommon variety in the appearance of granite is 

 that of gigantic masonry formed of flat masses in the shape 

 of parallelopipedons lying regularly one upon the other, 

 in rows in the same horizontal line, with narrow seams of 

 softer portions interposed, exactly as a wall is made with 

 bricks and mortar. Itticuldroog, four miles north of the 

 village of Codagoor, on the road between the Kistnagherry 

 and Royacottah, is the only instance I know of this kind of 

 granite. It is a mass with mural sides, about a quarter of a 

 mile wide in its longest diameter. The base is surrounded 

 for thirty feet with a sloping pile of debris ; but above this 

 the mass is quite perpendicular. It rises suddenly out of 

 a stony arable plain, formed as those generally surrounding 

 granite hills are, of imperfect schists. Near it are some 

 common granite hills, and granite rocks are common in the 

 surrounding plain. The structure of the rock is very visi- 

 ble on all sides, and presents to view what are apparently 

 the edges of flat masses, about three feet thick, and ten 

 or twelve feet long, disposed horizontally with open seams 

 several inches wide, from which apparently a softer part 

 has been removed by the disintegrating action of the wea- 

 ther. The whole appearance is much like a pile of the flat 

 pieces of sandstone, as seen at the back of the Isle of Wight. 



