70 



THE NULLAMULLAYS. 



Still, there are areas which would seem not to be entirely 

 dried up, where there are somewhat extensive tracts of 

 forest land ; and it is to these I should wish to draw 

 attention further on, as I detail how we saw thern during 

 our several excursions. 



The rocks are Quartzite (altered sandstone) and Clay- 

 slate. Generally speaking, they are arranged thus : — a 

 great series of clay-slates resting on or overlying a great 

 series of quartzite, the latter occupying the western side of 

 the mountains, the former the eastern. They lie in a series of 

 great folds or undulations (sometimes almost reduplicated), 

 with a general dip to the eastward, so that occasionally, we 

 have the older quart zites rearing themselves up in the higher 

 parts of the mountains, the slates, which once overlaid 

 them, having been denuded ; while the lower parts of tire hills 

 and the valleys, which have been protected, still have the 

 elay-slates as their foundations. At the same time there are 

 thin series of slates intercalated in the bottom quartzites, as 

 there are also thin bands of quartzites in. the clay-slates, thus 

 giving to an ordinary observer the idea that the mountains 

 are a confused j unable of the two kinds of rock. Still, there 

 are the two distinct features of the Nullamullay s being slaty 

 on the east side of a line drawn through the highest ridge> 

 running north and south, that is, through the Hoblum 

 Pagoda (south) and Mmuljeery Conda (north) ; while to 

 the west they are of altered sandstones. And one effect of 

 this is that the jungle on the eastern half is thin and poor, 

 except in the bottoms of the valleys ; while there is tolerably 

 thick forest on the western side. At first sight, one would 

 wonder at this, the quartzites being such hard intractable 

 rocks, while the slates aie so much softer. 



Perhaps much of this barren character of the slates may 

 be owing to their being such bad holders of water. In the 

 Nullamullay s they are so fractured in a nearly vertical 



