378 Journal of a trip through the [April, 



fire in 1846, or a twelvemonth before I visited the place, yet I could 

 discover no traces of the occurrence. Just above where the spring issues 

 which supplies the village with water, immense calcareous blocks are 

 lying about that were probably formed by the agency of some spring 

 in the neighbourhood, but which has now ceased to flow. This leads 

 me to say a few words concerning Captain Newbold's theory of the 

 formation of kunkur. 



" The kunkur, as may have been collected from w T hat has been just 

 stated, is not of zoophytic origin, like coral reefs, nor does it appear to 

 have been generally deposited or chemically precipitated from the waters 

 of an ocean or inland lake, but like the travertines of Italy it may be 

 referred to the action of springs, often thermal, charged with carbonic 

 acid, bringing up lime in solution and depositing it, as the temperature of 

 the water gradually lowered in rising to the earth's surface or in parting 

 with their carbonic acid. After depositing a portion of calcareous mat- 

 ter in the fissures of the rocks by which it found a vent, the calcareous 

 water appears to have diffused itself in loose debris, regur, gravels, and 

 clays, usually covering the rocks, and by force of chemical affinity the 

 disseminated particles of lime gradually congregated into the nodular 

 and other forms which we see them assume. These nodules are some- 

 times arranged in rows like the flints in chalk, and from some of them 

 project delicate spiculse of carbonate of lime, which would have been bro- 

 ken off had they been drift pebbles, as is supposed by some."* Of the 

 tufaceous origin of kunkur there can be no doubt ; but to my mind the 

 latter part of the above theory, viz. that "by force of chemical affinity 

 disseminated particles of lime gradually congregated into the nodular and 

 other forms," is anything but satisfactory, and as to the existence of deli- 

 cate spicules being a proof of the masses not having been drifted, I think it 

 insufficient, for by taking a lump and causing water to be slowly filtered 

 through it spiculse will be formed ; the spicula? in question therefore may 

 have been formed by the agency of rain-water percolating through the 

 bed of kunkur ; the chief difficulty however is to account for the nearly 

 universal dispersion over India of the kunkur formation, for as Captain 

 Newbold says, " the kunkur formation is irregularly distributed in over- 

 lying patches over perhaps one-eighth of our area. I know of no tract 

 entirely free from it with the exception it is said of the summit of the 

 * Geology of Southern India, by Captain Newbold. 



