402 Geology of Bundelcund and Jubbulpore. [No. 125. 



severe in European habits, as to require a change of air for their re- 

 moval, but the native population do not seem to suffer from any 

 endemial diseases of this class in a greater degree than the inhabit- 

 ants of other parts of India ; and their appearance upon the whole, as 

 presented to myself, was rather prepossessing, and indicated general 

 good health and comfort. 



This black soil has evidently been derived from the decomposition 

 of some of the many varieties of trap rock, most probably amygdaloid 

 or green earth, which appear to have rested at one time over the gra- 

 nite in the hills of Bundelcund. The trap rocks at Gerawah and 

 Besseramgunge, and the globular variety observed on the hill of 

 Callinger, may also have had a share in forming it. As I remarked be- 

 fore, many of the trap boulders are now in a soft state bordering 

 on earth, and can be reduced to powder with the greatest ease. 

 The soil immediately around, there can be no doubt, is formed from their 

 debris, and as the plain in general resembles that, we may reasonably in- 

 fer, that it also acknowledges a similar source. 



Extensive forest, which it is not difficult to conceive had flourished 

 here at no very distant period, may have furnished the vegetable 

 matter ; and the successive increase of a heavy moist soil covering 

 the wood with each return of the rainy months, had prevented its com- 

 plete decay. For the amelioration and improvement of such a soil in 

 Europe, the agriculturist would have recourse to lime, as rendering it 

 drier, and reducing the vegetable matter it contains to a state more fit- 

 ted for supplying the requisite nourishment to the growing plant. 



In India, however, such an expedient would not be attended with 

 success, from the peculiarity which calcareous earth displays here of 

 uniting into small masses, termed kunkur, and not mingling well with 

 the other component parts of the soil, unless where siliceous sand hap- 

 pens to exist in an unusually large proportion, A mixture of this sand, 

 either derived from sandstone rock or the debris of granite, and similar 

 compound rocks, might be attended with the desired effect. We should 

 certainly expect a favorable result from reasoning on the subject, but 

 I am the more induced to think so from actual observation of another 

 part of the same district, between Cullinger and Allahabad via Tur- 

 rowa. There, a considerable change is indicated in the colour and pro- 

 perties of the soil. It becomes lighter as we proceed, and more attenu- 





