MADRAS JOURNAL 



OF 



LITERATURE AND SCIENCE. 



No. 13.— October, 1836. 



I. — Memoir on the Geology of the Neelgherry and Koondah Mountains* 

 By P. M. Benza, Esq. m. d. of the Madras Medical Establishment. 



" In a rapidly advancing science like Geology, to which new facts are 

 constantly added, and in which the chances of new views by their com- 

 bination are consequently multiplied, it is almost impossible to avoid 

 hazarding certain general conclusions, when the various known facts 

 pass in review before us."* 



The group of hills, called the Neelgherries, may be considered as the 

 southern termination of the western Ghauts, which at this place end in 

 abrupt, lofty, and almost vertical precipices; the extensive valley of 

 Coimbatore, dividing them from the Paulghaut chain, which, in the 

 same direction as the Ghauts, extends down to Cape Comorin. 



The Neelgherries form an elevated plateau, projecting in an easterly 

 direction, from the line of the ghauts, in the form of a triangle, the base 

 of which is the continuation of the ghauts themselves. 



They rise abruptly from the table-land of Mysore, in stupendous 

 cliffs, with an elevation of many thousand feet. Two rivers encircle 

 them, as it were, running round their base. The Bowany river, rising 

 in the westefn side of the Koondah, and among all the hills of that 

 group, runs in an easterly direction along the foot of the outside of the 

 Neelgherries, and, just below the apex of the triangle, is joined by the 

 Moyar, which together with the Pykarra, having their origin in the Ned- 

 diwattum range precisely opposite the sources of the Bowany, and 

 making a sharp curve after leaving the hills, runs an easterly course, 



* De la Beche's Geological Manual, Preface, page v. 



K 



