June, 1850. LEAVE CHURRA. KALA-PANEE. 285 



At the end of June, we started for the northern or Assam 

 face of the mountains. The road runs between the exten- 

 sive and populous native village, or poonji, on the left, and 

 a deep valley on the right, and commands a beautiful view 

 of more waterfalls. Beyond this it ascends steeply, and 

 the sandstone on the road itself is curiously divided into 

 parallelograms, like hollow bricks,* enclosing irregularly 

 shaped nodules, while in other places it looks as if it had 

 been run or fused : spherical concretions of sand, coloured 

 concentrically by infiltration, are common in it, which have 

 been regarded as seeds, shells, &c. ; it also contained 

 spheres of iron pyrites. The general appearance of much 

 of this rock is as if it had been bored by Teredines (ship 

 worms), but 1 never detected any trace of fossils. It is 

 often beautifully ripple-marked, and in some places much 

 honeycombed, and full of shales and narrow seams of coal, 

 resting on a white under-clay full of root-fibres, like those 

 of Stigmaria. 



At about 5000 feet the country is very open and bare, 

 the ridges being so uniform and flat-topped, that the broad 

 valleys they divide are hidden till their precipitous edges 

 are reached ; and the eye wanders far east and west over a 

 desolate level grassy country, unbroken, save by the curious 

 flat-topped hills I have described as belonging to the 

 limestone formation, which lie to the south-west. These 

 features continue for eight miles, when a sudden descent of 

 600 or 700 feet, leads into the valley of the Kala-panee 

 (Black water) river, where there is a very dark and 

 damp bungalow, which proved a very great accommodation 

 to us.f 



* I have seen similar bricks in the sandstones of the coal-districts of Yorkshire ; 

 they are very puzzling, and are probably due to some very obscure crystalline 

 . action analogous to jointing and cleavage. 



t It may be of use to the future botanist in this country to mention a small 



