1848.] Observations made on a Botanical Excursion. 381 



north and from the hot damp and exuberant forests of Orissa to the 

 south. Nor are its geological features less different, or its concomitant 

 and in part resultant characters of agriculture and native population. 

 Still further west than Mainpath, this range is continued, probably 

 ascending, till it meets the Vyndhya at Omer-kuntuk, there the great 

 rivers of the peninsula have their origin, these two ranges meeting and 

 combining to throw of the waters mainly in opposite directions. The 

 Nerbudda and Taptee hence flow west to the gulf of Cambay, the Cane 

 to the Jumna, the Soane to the Ganges, and the northern feeders of the 

 Godavery to the Bay of Bengal. Further west it appears to me that 

 they again separate, but are still to be recognized by geological fea- 

 tures, though these are masked by the presence in common to both 

 of enormous overlying masses of trap.* 



February \2th. — Left Sheergotty (alt. 463 ft.) crossing some small 

 streams which, like all else seen since leaving Dunwah Pass, flow N m to 

 the Ganges. Long low ranges of hills, isolated, and together forming 

 no apparent system, rise abruptly out of the plain. These are chiefly 

 of volcanic rocks, syenite and greenstone, forcing up, and sometimes 

 injected through broken masses of gneiss, metamorphic quartz, horn- 

 stone, &c. All the rocks composing them are of excessive hardness and 

 covered with a scanty vegetation, approaching absolute sterility. Many 

 of them occurring between Sheergotty and the Soane, are better known 

 to the traveller from having been telegraphic stations. Some are much 

 impregnated with iron, and whether for their color, the curious outlines 

 of many, or their position, they form quaint, and in some cases pictur- 

 esque features in the otherwise tame landscape. 



At Muddunpore alt. 442f ft. a thermometer, sunk 3 ft. 4 inches in 



* I laid these views when very crude before my friend and present host B. H. 

 Hodgson, Esq. and received such assistance in fixing them as few could afford. I 

 am anxious, thus early, to record my deep sense of obligation to one who is my 

 master in the Physical Geography of Asia, because, living as we are in constant 

 intercourse, and entertaining views, so consonant on enquiries of this nature, the 

 pupil is apt to forget, how much the results of his own efforts are enhanced in value 

 by the directing hand of his preceptor. 



f I need hardly say that I hope for the indulgence of the Indian Geographer dur- 

 ing his perusal of this sketch. It is given with the view of eliciting contradiction 

 or confirmation, and perhaps with too much of that confidence which my superficial 

 knowledge of a great part of the country in question inspires. One end will havo 



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