15 



'Geology of the Country 



[JULT 



over which you must leap to reach the Pagoda ; and, in the weary state 

 I was, it was rather a nervous feat to leap over an abyss yawning under 

 the feet. 



The view, however, from the summit more than repaid me for the 

 labour I had undergone. The whole plain, for many miles on both 

 sides of the rivers, was partitioned into thousands of fields regularly 

 laid out like the beds of a garden, or park, presenting a most lively 

 green expanse, which, carpet-like, was spread out over the plain. It 

 was the new grain, growing luxuriantly in all places, that gave this 

 lively appearance, while the rivers (then become one) were rolling 

 their waters majestically through the plain which they rendered so 

 fruitful. 



The village of Palliconda itself is a striking object, in the midst of so 

 much industry and fertility, but my eyes were wandering about in vain 

 to find the habitations of the thousands, for whom Providence had so 

 bountifully provided, and whose exertions produced so much fertility — 

 Palliconda excepted, I saw no other village, or hamlet, in that plain. 



Sitting on the pinnacle of the highest mass (higher than that of 

 the Pagoda), I rested myself, admiring the magnificent prospect under 

 me — I wished to enter the Pagoda, but a chasm intervened, which 

 I would not venture to stride over, being on the brink of a preci- 

 pice, the vicinity of which makes at all times giddy. 



The rocks of which this hill is formed are very interesting to the 

 geologist, as offering a luminous proof and example, how necessary 

 and just is the distinction between sienite, properly so called, and 

 sienitic granite ; the former generally associated with eurite, porphyry, 

 basalt and other trap rocks, and, therefore, differing in geological posi* 

 tion, and posterior in age to the latter, which, although resulting 

 from the aggregation of the same three minerals, is associated with 

 primitive rocks, in primitive countries. 



It was Dr. Macculloch, in his masterly description of the geological 

 features of Glen Tilt, who first shewed that, besides the sienite asso- 

 ciated with trap, there is a rock, having the same composition and 

 aspect, but of a different age, being in an older geological position. 

 The specimen, which served as a type for his nomenclature, was brought 

 from the neighbourhood of Dresden, where the sienite is associated 

 with porphyry and other trap rocks. Werner, seeing that the Dresden 

 rock contained the same minerals as that of which some of the Egyp- 

 tian sculptured works are formed, called it sienite, from Siene in Upper 

 Egypt, where the material was quarried. Accurate observation proved 

 to Macculloch that, besides the sienite so called by Werner, which is an, 

 overlaying rock of a posterior origin to granite, there was one in Glen 

 Tilt, which, although composed of the same minerals, was associated 

 and contemporaneous with primary rocks : in short that there was a 



