1845] Notts on the South Mahratta Country, fyc. 269 



iron sand, and throwing them into a tumbler a quarter full of 

 water. 



If the tumbler then be inclined to one side, and gently moved so as 

 to cause the water to move backwards and forwards over the surface of 

 the sand, the particles of quartz and iron gradually separate and become 

 arranged in distinct layers. 



The upper beds of the section are of loose silt and sand, the lower 

 layers are more consolidated, and towards the base of the cliff thin 

 layers of an indurated liver-brown marl alternate ; both the silt and 

 marl effervesce slightly with acids. At the bottom of the fissure 

 runs a rain channel, which has washed the sides into salient and 

 re-entering angles. In some places they have been excavated and 

 undermined by it, and portions of the superincumbent layers have 

 fallen in. In short, we see on this diminutive, yet true scale, all the 

 striking features of precipice, ravine, pinnacle, and castellated form so 

 remarkable in the sandstone and limestone formations. 



Tabular cavities appear in many portions of the cliff which have 

 neither been caused by snails, nor other boring conchifers. They have 

 originated from the stems of long grasses, around which layer after 

 layer of silt, &c. had been deposited until the stem decayed away, leaving 

 an empty cavity modified by the action of the rain trickling down it 

 into the substance of the rock.' In many of these cavities the grasses 

 are still seen. The iron sand is slightly magnetic, infusible per se 

 before the blow-pipe ; and forming with difficulty a blackish slag ; it 

 tinges borax of a brownish green. It has probably been derived from 

 the neighbouring trap formation. 



The Rivers Kistnah and Gutpurba. The Kistnah near the con- 

 fluence is apparently about 500 yards broad, and the Gutpurba about 

 100. The current of the former had a velocity of about two and a half 

 feet per second, and the latter about two and three-quarter feet. 



The temperature of both rivers, one foot below the surface, was 

 exactly the same, viz. 76° 5'. Temperature of air in shade 76° ; in sun 

 84° : month July, river swollen by the monsoon freshes. Mean tem- 

 perature of the South Mahratta country at Darwar, according to Christie, 

 is about 75°. As both rivers were nearly full, there was no opportunity 

 of examining the size and nature of the pebbles in the bed. On the banks 

 are scattered water-worn fragments of chert, quartz, granite, trap, 



