]845.] across the Peninsula from Mangalore. 645 



flat steps, or terraces, till the summit is attained ; when the route lies 

 along a cross valley having high hills on both sides, round the bases of 

 which the road winds for some miles to the clear table-land of Mysore, 

 where the land subsides in long gentle swells covered with delicious 

 verdure, and the dense jungle breaks in plantation-like patches, and 

 umbrageous clusters of noble trees. In the gorge of the Pass lay the 

 broken barricades of the insurgents. 



At the western foot of the Pass, and along the base of the Subramani, 

 hornblende rock, containing garnets and dark-coloured mica, occurs, with 

 veins of a very large grained granite composed of white quartz, red and 

 white felspar, and silvery mica in very large plates : gneiss is seen on 

 the steep face of the ghaut, and hornblende rock often coated with the 

 red clay, and its own detritus. This formation continues to the sum- 

 mit of the ghaut. 



Uchinghy. The formation here is generally gneiss. One of the hills 

 of this rock is crested by hornblende rock in large prismatic masses. 

 Patches of laterite occur, covering these rocks in various localities, and 

 a few bosses of granite. 



Kensum Ooscottah. This village is fairly on the table-land : near it 

 I crossed the Hemavatti, one of the principal tributaries to the Cauvery, 

 in a canoe. It is about fifty paces broad, with steep banks of clay, silt, 

 and sand with mica. Near a temple to the Lingum in the vicinity of the 

 village, mammillary masses of gneiss project from the red alluvial soil. 

 This rock has here lost much of its quartz, and is of that variety of 

 thick bedded gneiss which, in a hand specimen, might pass for granite ; 

 the felspar is often of a reddish tint. Laterite is found in this vicinity 

 a little below the surface in a soft sectile state. 



The face of the surrounding country is diversified with low-rounded 

 hills, often covered with a red clayey soil, which yields during the moist 

 months a verdant carpet of short grass. 



Springs of good water are found at depths of from twelve to eighteen 

 feet below the surface. Rice and raggy are the staple articles of culti- 

 vation. 



Ooscotta comprises about one hundred houses, inhabited chiefly by 

 Lingayets and a few Carnati brahmans of the Smartal and Sri Vaishna- 

 vam sects, and a few Dewangurs. 



A. solitary Sri Vaishnavam brahman resides in the fort. The fort is 

 said to have been built or greatly improved by Hyder, but is a place of 



