1836.] the Country between Hyderabad and Nagpur. 117 



smell resembling sulphur was also occasionally perceived ; and at the 

 latter, our people procured water of a very offensive taste, although per- 

 fectly clear, from a well which I did not see. 



The water abounds with animal life, and the banks are covered with 

 a profuse vegetation, amongst which many fine insects were seen ; and 

 in the hot season, all forms of life seem to gather round this oasis in 

 the black burned-up country around. The banks and water affording 

 so much food, vast numbers of birds of different species, game, doves, 

 kings-fishers, herons, &c. are collected together, whose habits a natu- 

 ralist might spend months in observing, without exhausting the field of 

 inquiry. 



All the springs seemed to be equally loaded with calcareous matter, 

 and similar formations by springs now closed up are seen on a rising 

 ground down the river. Here too, the globular trap again appeared on 

 the surface in several places, of small extent ; one was a little to the 

 west of the greatest formation of travertine, and another below the ford 

 where the hard nuclei were surrounded by layers of a grey friable wacke 

 like that of the Nirmul hills, and are curiously divided into compart- 

 ments by tuffaceous partitions. Near to this, the blue limestone is again 

 found in extensive slabs, slightly raised from its horizontal position ; 

 but as usual in no regular direction, the strata occasionally meeting 

 each other at an obtuse angle. The same remark applies to the rock as 

 seen to the north of the springs on the road to Won, and to almost 

 every other place where I have met with it. Near the last mentioned 

 bed of basalt, some irregularly inclined strata of blue rock, having a 

 granular sandstone-like aspect, were seen, and at no great distance, 

 large loose masses of vesicular scoriae were found, (specimens Nos. 

 109, 115.) 



But the most interesting appearances are seen, in a small irregular 

 rising ground, above the pagoda at the principal spring, which will be 

 best understood by an inspection of the specimens 104. The basis of 

 the rock is a tough white limestone, projecting from the gentle rising 

 ground in very irregular masses, passing into curious and beautiful 

 jasperous minerals, often coated with minute rock and other crystals ; 

 and the whole is perforated by large cavities, and even holes, evidently 

 formed when the rock had been erupted in a semifluid state. Much 

 tuffa is associated with these altered rocks, filling up many of the cavi- 

 ties, and having various minerals imbedded. I believe that few places 

 exhibit so many of the most interesting effects of volcanic action, as the 

 small district around Kair ; more especially in altering a stratified rock 

 of apparently uniform structure, so as to form a great variety of mine- 



B 



