1862.] Account of a visit to Puppa doung. 217 



Pagan to the foot of Puppa, is composed of the series of sands and 

 gravels, with occasional conglomerate beds, which occupies so large 

 a portion of the valley of the Irawaddi between Ava and Prome, and 

 sections of which abound on the river banks between Pagan and 

 Meulha, especially in the neighbourhood of Yenankhyoung. Many 

 details concerning them will be found in Dr. Oldham's notes on the 

 geological features of the banks of the Irawaddi, published as an 

 appendix to Col. Yule's "Narrative." In these beds, bones of Mas- 

 todon, Elephant, Rhinoceros, Bos and other ruminants, Tortoise, 

 Crocodile, &c, occur in several places, as at Yenankhyoung, Pakhan- 

 nge, in the Yau country west of Pagan, &c, and they contain the 

 silicified fossil wood, the abundance of which in this portion of Bur- 

 ma is so remarkable. About Pagan, and to the E. and N. E. of the 

 town, the country occupied by these rocks is less intersected by ra- 

 vines than is the case further south, and from the undulating plain 

 which slopes gradually and gently upwards from the river, the out- 

 crops of the harder nummulitic beds, which underlie the more recent 

 sands, project, here and there, in the form of straight steep ridges of 

 sandstone of no great height. One of the most prominent of these 

 is the Taywan doung, which stretches for eight or ten miles in a 

 nearly straight line from N. 20 W. to S. 20 E., the dip of the beds 

 being at an angle of about 40° to W. 20 S. 



I climbed to the Pagoda at the N. W. end of the range for the 

 purpose of obtaining a few bearings, and from this point I had the 

 first good view of Puppa. From some delay in starting, and a halt 

 about midday for breakfast, together with a few eccentricities on the 

 part of my guide, it was by this time afternoon, and the sun had 

 sunk considerably, so that it shone from behind me upon the moun- 

 tain. Dr. Oldham, who also saw Puppa, from this spot, suggested 

 that it might be formed of metamorphic rocks, like the mountains 

 E. of Ava, and its appearance produced precisely the same impres- 

 sion upon me, although I could see distinctly, even at this distance, 

 that the highest part of the mountain did not consist of a straight 

 rid^e, but of a semicircular one, surrounding a central hollow, which 

 suggested a volcanic origin. But such an appearance is not rare in 

 high peaks of gneiss or schistose rocks. There is one remarkable 

 instance in Beerbhoom, about thirty miles S, of Deogurh, in a hill 

 called Patardha. 



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