1336.] 



Neelgherries and Koondahs. 



295 



three miles below the present ford, in the new Neddiwattum road, they 

 saw a ledge of rocks, nearly horizontal, extending the whole breadth 

 of the river, on which they observed the same kind of perforations as 

 those of Makoortee. I went to examine this locality, and I found them, 

 although not of the same magnitude, yet large enough to show their 

 similarity of origin. 



Returning from Makoort.ee to Ootacamund, the stratification of the 

 hornblende slate is clearly seen in all the hills, more, than half the way, 

 their direction being nearly N. E. and S. W. At a ford of the Pykara, 

 the fourth from the tents, it is worth stopping for a few minutes to look 

 at the well defined prisms of columnar clay, which form the right bank 

 of the river, being about ten feet high. These columns stand erect and 

 apart from each other, having a little space between them through 

 which we see a second line of them, peeping in the intervals. More 

 than half a mile of the bank is thus formed. 



It is time, now, to treat of the comparison between the Makoortee 

 cavities, and those I have seen, and read of as existing, in Europe, at 

 present raised hundreds and thousands of feet above the influence of 

 those causes which we have seen to operate at Makoortee, and which, 

 as I said, have baffled the ingenuity of many geologists, who have 

 attempted to explain their origin. I shall first describe those found in 

 England, called by the name of rock basins. 



Dr. Borlase was of opinion, that the so called logging stones are of 

 Druidical origin, representing Saturn, &c, and that what he calls 

 rock basins were the pools for lustration, appertaining to that worship. 

 But Dr. MacCulloch, having proved the logging stones, or tors, to 

 be a natural, and not an artificial, production, speaking then of the rock 

 basins, says : " these excavations which assume some curved figure 

 " with rounded bottoms, are produced by the decomposition of the 

 " granite, naturally ; since, if a drop of water can make an effectual 

 " lodgment on the surface of the granite, a small cavity is, sooner or 

 <£ later, produced, and so increasing forms those pools."* This 

 explanation is an example of those eccentric notions, which Dr. 

 MacCulloch occasionally entertained, and defended with childish per- 

 tinacity ; like as, in the latter years of his life, he held and maintained 

 that geology, during the last thirty years, has made no advance, not- 

 withstanding the high character of the discoveries in organic remains. 



I do not recollect where, but I have read a rather scurrilous refuta- 

 tion of this notion of the decomposition of granite resulting from an 

 " effectual lodgment of a drop of water." De la Beche, in his Geolo- 

 gical Manual, after speaking of the influence of electricity and of oxy- 

 gen in the decomposition of rocks, adds the following passage, which I 



* Transactions of the Geological Society of London 1814, Vol. II p. 67, 



