GEOLOGY OF CENTRAL INDIA. 



73 



In this district too, we can trace appearances which have probably- 

 resulted from the last great flood to which our planet was subjected, 

 in the huge blocks and rolled masses which frequently present themselves 

 detached from the beds in which they originally occurred, and at a great 

 distance from them. The sharp angular appearance of these fragments 

 indicate that they were not long exposed to the action of water. Im- 

 mense tracts present themselves strewed with angular blocks and masses 

 of the white quartz, which has been described as being characterised by 

 its numerous seams and cracks, and which, owing to this circumstance, 

 was peculiarly liable to be detached from its original position ; and in 

 many situations I have observed heaps of the masses of this rock piled 

 upon each other as if artificially, and resting on low rounded hills, composed 

 of a similar variety of quartz. It is impossible, on witnessing these, not 

 to conclude that higher hills, formed of this rock, originally existed in such 

 situations, and that all that now is left of these are the heaps just alluded 

 to, which still remain to mark the spot where mountains have existed 

 before — and we cannot fail to perceive the ruins of these mountains in 

 the masses of quartz which strew the country far and near. 



It is impossible, from facts of this nature, to arrive at any certain 

 conclusions regarding the direction from which this flood came. Cross 

 currents and a thousand other circumstances must be taken into consi- 

 deration ; but from the general position which these detached fragments 

 occupy, I am inclined to believe that it came from the west or north- 

 west. 



Geology of the Northern Portion. — ^We shall now proceed to 

 describe, as briefly as possible, the Geology of the northern portion of the 

 district under consideration. The great difference in the external appear- 

 ance of the country betwixt the northern and southern portions, has already 



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