278 Notes on the South Mahratta Country, fyc. [No. 160. 



it hurries down the shelving tables of rock with frightful rapidity to 

 its fall. 



The fall over the face of the precipice seems slow and sullen from 

 the velocity of the surface water of this rapid, and from the great 

 denseness of the body; and it plunges heavily down with a deep 

 thundering sound, which we heard during the previous night at our en- 

 campment, three and a half miles farther down the river. 



This ponderous descent, and the heavy muddy colour of the water, 

 conveys a feeling of weight through the eye to the senses, which is re- 

 lieved by the lightness and airiness of thin clouds of white vapour 

 and amber-coloured spray which ascend from the basin at the bottom 

 of the gorge in curling wreaths, curtaining the lower portions of the fall, 

 and through which the basin was only seen at intervals when its sur- 

 face was swept by the fitful gusts that swept up the glen. 



Rising above the cliffs that confine the falls, the watery particles 

 vanish as they ascend ; but again condensing, descend in gentle showers, 

 which is felt at a short distance round the head of the falls. 



Spray bows, varying in brightness, distinctness and extent, accord- 

 ing to the quantity of light refracted, and the modification of the 

 vapour, lent their prismatic tints to the ever-ascending wreaths ; the 

 largest, (observed about 4 p. m.) formed an arch completely across 

 the river, rose, and receding as the sun sank in the west, gradually dis- 

 appeared with it. Like the rainbow they are only produced on the sur- 

 face of the cloud opposed to the sun's rays. The size and distance from 

 each other of the drops composing the different portions of the spray 

 cloud, evidently influenced the brilliancy of the refracted colours, the 

 tints being brightest in those portions where the drops were of medium 

 size and density, and dullest where the watery particles were smallest 

 and closest together. 



The velocity of the surface water of the rapid was about nine feet 

 per second, and its depth ten feet. About two and a half miles farther up, 

 the river near the village of Koonoor, beyond the rapid, is a ford in the 

 dry season, and a safe ferry during the monsoon. A tumbler-full of the 

 turbid water deposited l-50th of its bulk of a fine reddish clay, not cal- 

 careous, — a fact showing that the lime which exists in the sediment 

 of this river at its confluence with the Kistnah, must have been derived 

 from the intermediate plains. The pebbles brought down are chiefly 



