March, 1849. GEOLOGY. VEGETATION. 401 



gravel beds that occur on the road north to the foot of the 

 hills, and thence over the tertiary sandstone to Punkabaree. 

 At the Rukti river, which flows south-west, the road 

 suddenly rises, and crosses the first considerable hill, 

 about two miles south of any rock in situ. This river cuts 

 a cliff from 60 to 100 feet high, composed of stratified 

 sand and water-worn gravel : further south, the spur 

 declines into the plains, its course marked by the Sal that 

 thrives on * its gravelly soil. The road then runs north- 

 west over a plain to an isolated hill about 200 feet high, 

 also formed of sand and gravel. We ascended to the top 

 of this, and found it covered with blocks of gneiss, and 

 much angular detritus. Hence the road gradually ascends, 

 and becomes clayey. Argillaceous rocks, and a little 

 ochreous sandstone appeared in highly-inclined strata, 

 dipping north, and covered with great water-worn blocks 

 of gneiss. Above, a flat terrace, flanked to the eastward 

 by a low wooded hill, and another rise of sandstone, lead 

 on to the great Baisarbatti terrace. 



Bombax, Erythrina, and Buabanga (Lagcerstrccmia 

 grandiflora), were in full flower, and with the profusion 

 of Bau/rinia, rendered the tree-jungle gay : the two former 

 are leafless when flowering. The Duabanga is the pride 

 of these forests. Its trunk, from eight to fifteen feet in 

 girth, is generally forked from the base, and the long 

 pendulous branches which clothe the trunk for 100 feet, 

 are thickly leafy, and terminated by racemes of immense 

 white flowers, which, especially when in bud, smell most 

 disagreeably of assafoetida. The magnificent Apocyneous 

 climber, Beaumontia, was in full bloom, ascending the loftiest 

 trees, and clothing their trunks with its splendid foliage 

 and festoons of enormous funnel-shaped white flowers. 



The report of a bed of iron-stone eight or ten miles west 



