1845.] across the Peninsula of Southern India. 409 



rarely above 10° towards the East and N. of E., and the undisturbed 

 dip of the beds can be traced from one side to the other. 

 , No ledges supporting beds of rolled pebbles could be found on the 

 faces of the cliffs, or other marks of the rocks having been worn by 

 watery erosion down to the present channel. 



It is therefore reasonable to infer that this singular fissure has been 

 mainly occasioned by contraction of the mass during consolidation, and 

 not by "a violent convulsion of nature or erosion;" although there is 

 little doubt that its width has been since increased and shape modified 

 by the washing of the river floods, as is evident from the precipitated 

 debris from the sides which occasionally strew the bed. Smaller pa- 

 rallel fissures are observable in the cliffs on each side, one of which has 

 formed the cave called by the native guides, "Pandi Gawi" 



The bed of the river is filled with sand and fragments of sandstone, 

 and occasionally of its associated blue limestone, to so great a depth as to 

 render an examination of the downward continuation of the fissure 

 impracticable. 



The great depression of the bottom of the fissure is clearly shown 

 by the sudden manner in which the waters of the Pennaur are de- 

 flected into it from the S. E. course they were pursuing along the 

 Western flank of the hills, and by the confluence of the Chittravutty 

 at this point. 



The river during the rains is said to rise to the height of seven or 

 eight feet in the centre of the Pass. 



The rock composing the cliffs is for the most part of a faint reddish, 

 compact sandstone approaching quartz rock, in tabular masses of great 

 thickness, though sometimes interstratified with argillaceous seams 

 like the sandstones of Gokauk on the Gutpurba, which are usually of 

 a reddish white and buffy colour. 



The faces of the sandstone cliffs exhibit bands of a pale, green, red 

 and white, which conform to the stratification. 



The cliffs sustain a rocky table-land, the surface of which is fre- 

 quently covered with a crust of laterite varying from a few inches to 

 several feet in thickness, and which is also deposited in the fissures 

 and seams of the subjacent sandstone. 



The tabular surface of the latter rock, where denuded of this late- 



ritic crust, is often divided into parallelograms by intersecting fissures 



and joints. 



3 L 



