352 Mr. Playfair's Account of a 
on the NW. encompasses the mountain, forming as it were a 
line of circumvallation round it, and on these were the stations 
which Mr. Burrows, under Dr. Maskelyne's direction, had 
chosen for the survey. Beyond these hills the ground falls 
down into a sort of plain of great extent on the north ; on 
the south, less considerable and more uneven, yet such as 
to leave Schehallien very free and open in the direction of 
the meridian, and adapted by that means to shew the full 
amount of its action on the plummet. From the base its 
sides rise with a rapid, though unequal acclivity, and ter- 
minate not in a point, but in a ridge or narrow plane of a 
waving form, about a mile in length, and sloping regularly to 
the east, where it is 480 feet lower than at the western ex- 
tremity. Though the sides are very rugged, they are less 
broken by deep ravines or bold projections than the other 
mountains of the same elevation in this quarter of the 
Grampians ; for, beside the high neck which has been already 
mentioned as uniting Schehallien to the mountains on the west 
it has only one other saliant ridge, which runs out to the NE. 
and overlooks the plain with a very steep and precipitous 
aspect. In some directions, and when viewed from a consi- 
derable distance, the harsh features of the mountain are 
wonderfully softened; it acquires a very beautiful conoidal 
shape, and from thence derives the name by which it is known 
among the inhabitants of the low country. 
The rock of Schehallien, like that of all the mountains in its 
vicinity, is of the class called primitive ; and is disposed for 
most part in great parallel plates, or strata, nearly vertical, 
stretching from SE. to NW. They are indeed so nearly ver- 
tical, that a deviation of 15 0 from the perpendicular is rarely 
