1000 Notes, chiefly Geological, across the Peninsula [No. 156. 



disorders committed by the irregular Arab soldiery, the town of Firoza- 

 bad had been almost deserted : and the ambikars with their basket 

 boats had quitted the ferry which was now unfordable and the water 

 running with considerable rapidity. The village people collected a 

 number of pumpkins, and about noon they succeeded in netting these 

 together and constructing a tolerable raft, with which the stream 

 was easily crossed. 



The sources of this fine river rise in the western ghauts a little to 

 the N. and S. of Poonah ; after watering the fertile plains of the coun- 

 try of the Marhattas, where its banks are famous for the breed of horses 

 and mares from which the hardy cavalry of this warlike race has baen 

 chiefly supplied, and flowing S. Easterly towards the Bay of Bengal 

 over the almost continuous sheet of the great overlying trap formation 

 of the Deccan, it joins the Kistnah on the granite and hypbgene area of 

 Hydrabad about 50 miles direct distance S. E from Firozabad. It con- 

 tributes to the Kistnah many of the Pietri duri of the overlying trap 

 formation that are rolled along its bed over more than half the penin- 

 sula. 



Trap Formation from the right bank of the Bhima to the laterite 

 of Inglisswara. 



The trap again covers the limestone a little to the N.E. of the village 

 of Gonnully, about 4 miles from the river : the latter rock is seen out- 

 cropping for the last time at the base of a low hill of trap between 

 Gowncolly and Sunnoo. The trap is amygdaloidal, veined with kunker, 

 and imbedding calcedonies and calc spar. 



From Sunnoo to Jyattaky the calcedony is seen both in veins and 

 nodules, and passes into plasma ; the colour varies from the lightest 

 tinge of apple green to the deep hue of heliotrope into which it passes ; 

 in some translucent varieties the colouring matter is desposed in deli- 

 cate moss-like filaments, the colouring matter of the plasma has not 

 been exactly ascertained by chemists, but it seems to be similar to 

 that of the heliotrope, both disappearing before the blow-pipe.* The 

 colour of this variety of plasma when exposed to the reducing flame 

 changes to a purplish white, the plasma becoming opaque and easily 

 frangible. I have little doubt that the red spots of the variety of Calce- 



• Perhaps silicate of Iron ? that of Heliotrope being the red oxide ?— Eds. 



