1840.] Notes illustrative of the Geology of Southern India. 315 



X. — Notes illustral'ive of the Geology of Southern India. — By Lieut, 

 R. Baird Smith, Bengal Engineers. 



The universal prevalence of primary rocks, with the general quies- 

 cence of the agents of active reproduction, tend to give a degree of 

 monotony to the geology of Southern India, and to deprive it of that 

 interest which naturally attaches to activity and variety. The features 

 of its hills and its valleys alike exhibit indications of the lono; conti- 

 nued reign of the decomposing and abrading powers of the natuial 

 world. The fantastic turret-like peaks, the results of the unequal 

 disintegration of the granitic masses of which they are composed, so 

 frequently crowning the summits of the one, are the trophies of ages 

 of resistance on their part to atmospheric encroachments, while the 

 boulder-like masses and crumbling deposits met with in the other, tell 

 the same tale of long resisted but yet resistless power. But amid 

 these signs of decay we see nothing of those active reproductive agen- 

 cies which so abundantly characterise more diversified regions. No 

 great rivers are seen bearing on their waters the fragments of one con- 

 tinent to re-create or increase another ; no inland lakes or seas are gra- 

 dually passing away from the face of the earth, year by year percepti- 

 bly approaching the time when fruitful fields will replace their *' waste 

 of vi'aters," and when their solitude and silence will yield to the glad 

 voices of the labourers rejoicing in the luxuriance of these new bom 

 lands. 



Equally quiescent are all igneous agents, for no volcanoes are here in 

 active operation, and the existence of subterranean forces is only occa- 

 sionally indicated by slight tremblings of the earth within very limited 

 districts. Yet even with this monotony, the geology of Southern India 

 is not devoid of interest, since its very peculiarity in having been so 

 long free from any powerful disturbing agents, either aqueous or igne- 

 ous, has admitted of the full display of those phenomena which result 

 from the unchecked sway of the decomposing influence of atmospheric 

 agents. These are neither trivial nor uninteresting, since to this source 

 there seems now but little doubt that the formation of the laterite, so 

 long an apple of discord among the observers of Sourthern India, is to 

 be traced. A mass of observations gleaned from many well developed 

 lateritic localities, both on the coast and inland, have recently been 

 made public in an interesting paper on this formation by Dr. Clark, 

 H. M. 13th Dragoons; and by the careful examination and discussion 

 of these, the question of its origin seems to me to be satisfactorily 

 *ttswered. Before this paper came to my knowledge, a conviction that 



