352 



Geology of the Deccan. 



[Oct. 



or six-sided, articulated, and from a foot to two feet and a half in 

 diameter, and of various lengths ; the lateral planes perfect, but in 

 some instances the sharpness of the angles has been affected by wea- 

 thering. The texture is close-grained, colour almost black, and they 

 affect the needle. 



At Jehoor, near the source of the Seena river, in an insulated hill, 

 an obscure columnar disposition is met with in a rock, in which in 

 other places 1 had not seen the slightest trace of it. A stratum of red, 

 cellular, amygdaloid fifteen feet thick, has subcolumns in its ex- 

 posed edges eight or ten feet in diameter. In the banks of a water- 

 course running into the Hunga river, half a mile east of Parneir, 

 on the elevated table-land between the cities of Ahmednuggur 

 and Joonur, basaltic columns are very numerous, they are five 

 or six feet high, not articulated, and are not quite perpendicular. This 

 formation is evidently extensive, as the ends of columns, chiefly pent- 

 angular, appear in the bed of the water-course for some distance, form- 

 ing a pavement of geometrical slabs. The ends of columns of different 

 lengths also appear in the southern bank at intervals, forming flights 

 of steps. The basalt of which these columns are composed is very 

 close-grained, almost black, with shining specks of a metallic lustre. 

 The rocky banks of the Kokree river at Jambut, in the plain of Joonur, 

 exhibit a strong inclination to a large columnar structure. In the hill 

 fort of Singhur, at an elevation of 4162 feet, at the western end of the 

 fort, there is a sheet of rock which has the appearance of a pavement 

 of pentangular slabs. The slabs are no doubt the -terminal planes 

 of basaltic columns. The same is observed in the hill fort of Hur- 

 reechundurghur, about seventy miles north of Singhur; also in the 

 bed of a water-course one mile north-east of Barlonee, near the for- 

 tress of Purrunda, 112 miles east-south-east of Singhur; and, lastly, 

 in the bed of the Mool river at Gorgaon, Poona collectorate. These 

 pavements extend to Malwa, as Captain Dangerfield mentions their 

 occurrence in the beds of the Chutnbul and Nerbuddah (Nermada) 

 rivers.* The other localities of basaltic columns, or a marked dis- 

 position to this structure, were in a well at Kumlepoor, between the 

 fortress of Purrunda and Barlonee, near the left bank of the Seena 

 river ; at Kheir Turruf Rasseen, in the face of a headland, abutting 

 on the Beema river, on which the tow f n stands; in the ascent to the 

 temple of Boleshwur Turruf Sandus, Poona collectorate ; and, finally, 



Malcolm's Central India, Appendix, pp. 329. 330. 



