200 Journal of a trip to Cuttack, [March, 



IV. — Extracts from the Journal of Lieut. Markham Kittoe, sub- 

 mitted to the Asiatic Society at the meeting of the 6th Oct. 1836. — 

 Ruins and Pillar at Jojipur. 



[Continued from p. 56.] 



Wednesday, 30th November, 1836, — Camp Chutteea. This morn- 

 ing's march, the distance was 14 miles, road good and no less than 

 twenty-two bridges. 



Our camp is on an open space near the Chutteea, no shelter, the 

 ground so hard that it was with difficulty our tents were pitched, there 

 being a bed of laterite a few inches below the surface ; the village stands 

 on a granite rock, the laterite adheres to and mixes with the granite in 

 a curious manner, the strata of the rock incline at (about) an angle of 

 45° with the horizon (southward), the rock in such parts where the 

 laterite (which is hard and vitrified having the appearance of brick- 

 kiln slag) rests, is in like manner red and vitrified. 



The country to the left of the road is very flat and swampy, the 

 isolated hills alluded to yesterday, have a very strange appearance : it 

 has often struck me as very remarkable, the abrupt manner in which 

 all the hills met with from hence to Rajmahal and onwards to the 

 Sewalik range, rise from the surrounding plains, in the soil of which at 

 a distance of a few yards only, not a pebble or fragment of rock is to be 

 found, even at very great depths* : it would seem that the whole plains 

 of Hindustan had been (previous to their present state) a vast ocean of 

 liquid mud and quicksands which had gradually settled and dried on the 

 receding of the waters that caused its existence. 



About two miles from camp, we passed between two high hills, rising 

 abruptly as described : they are covered with dense jungle, there was 



* The Sewalik range of hills east and west (in the immediate vicinity) of the 

 Sutlege, rise very abruptly, from Kidder abad near Rooper to the Jumna, and again 

 between that river and the Ganges, shingle and boulderstones are found to a very 

 great depth. The shingle is met with at increased depths from the surface (below 

 the common soil) in ratio as you recede from the foot of the hills towards the plains, 

 shewing I should think, the former existence of a beach, and of the ocean having 

 once washed the Sewalik range prior to the formation of the plains. During my 

 travels along the base of the Sewalik, and through the Dhoons (valleys), of Dhera, 

 Kyarda and Pinjore and to Nahun, Simla, Mussooree, &c. &c. in 1831, I could not 

 help observing the peculiar manner in which the strata of shingle and boulders in 

 some places rest, commencing at the base of the high ranges and passing under the 

 valleys over the Sewalik, there dipping down on the southern face into the plains 

 (vide sketch A). Thecavities in the higher mountains being likewise filled with debris 

 would lead one to suppose that at some remote period an ocean had shifted its posi- 

 tion from the northern regions beyond the Himalaya to the southern. 



