1845.] across the Peninsula from Mangalore. 657 



they irrigate. The tank of Sri Permatoor is said to water 25,000 acres, 

 chiefly rice-fields yielding two annual crops. 



The higher grounds are often uncultivated, and covered with low 

 bushes, chiefly of the dwarf date, (Elate sylvestris) ; the thorny carais, 

 (Webera tetrandra) ; the fragrant Kellacheri ; and the prickly pear, over 

 which tower the stately fan- palm and cocoanut. 



This maritime province of Chingleput, or " the Jaghire," the first 

 ceded to us in S. India (A. D. 1763 by Nuwab Wallajah) has an area 

 of 2253 miles; a revenue (chiefly derived from its wet cultivation, and 

 the duties on salt manufactured on the coast) of nearly fifteen lacs of 

 rupees, and a population of about 108 to the square mile. 



The surface soil in the vicinity of Sri Permatoor is a sandy, reddish 

 loam, overlying either thin beds of a loose coarse sandstone passing 

 into white and ferruginous shales, laterite or kunker mixed with sand, 

 or " chikni mutti" a tough greyish marl imbedding fragments of gra- 

 nite rocks, chiefly felspar. In digging for water near the village, the 

 following is a list of the layers usually cut through 



1st. Reddish sandy loam, ., .. .. .. 5 feet. 



2nd. Angular granitic gravel, granitic orlateritic, | 

 mingled with kunker, . . . . . . . . J 



3rd. Chikni mutti, . . . . . . . . 4 „ 



4th. Loose sandstone, . . . . . . . . 4 „ 



5th. Sand, . . . 2 „ 



18 feet. 



At Conjeveram the wells are much shallower, the bed of sand in which 

 the water is found lies under similar layers of loam and chikni mutti, 

 on an impervious bed of rock or clay. The Wudras tell me, there, 

 that they never have occasion to dig down to the rock. 



On the hard surface of the plain at Sri Permatoor are found, near 

 the Traveller's bungalow, a few fragments of a hornblende rock resem- 

 bling that of Palaveram, pegmatite, grey granite, a ferruginous horn- 

 blendic rock, white and reddish shales with edges little worn, together 

 with a few scattered pebbles, well rounded, of a compact reddish 

 sandstone or quartz rock, exactly resembling that of the Naggery hills, 



