^AUT 2.] 
Mallet: Mud volcanoes of Rmnn and Chediiba. 
189 
Orograpliically and geologically, liowever, the islands in question, -which. 
Physical features of Ramri with tlie islets in the neighbourhood, may be conve- 
aiul Cheduba. niontly spoken of as tlie R;iniri group, are intimately 
connected with the Arrakan range of mountains, which, running from Cape 
Negrais northwards towards Manipur, forms the dimding ridge between the basin 
of the Irrawadi and the smaller rivers of Pegu, Arrakan and Chittagong, which 
find their way direct into the Bay of Bengal. In the latitude of Riimri this 
range attains in places an elevation of from throe to nearly five thousand feet, 
the hilly islands in question constituting outliers on the western flank of the 
range. Ramri is separated merely by a narrow creek from the mainland, to which 
the whole group would be connected by an elevation of a few fathoms." 
No map is in existence which correctly delineates the orographical feature.s 
of these islands. The Ramri hills are disposed in very numerous, and generally 
irregular, ridges. In some cases, where bands of harder rock preserve a uniform 
dip and strike, as between Likmau and Minbain, straight and well defined ranges 
occur, but more frequently, o-vving to the iiregularity of the strike and dip, and 
the softness of much of the rock, the hiU.s are irregular in their direction and 
featureless in outline. There is, however, a, genei-al tendency to a direction 
approximating to north-west—south-east. Generally the rounded, jungle-clad 
ridges vary in height from one or two hundred feet to double or treble that eleva¬ 
tion. The hills in the southern part of the island are, on the whole, higher than 
those further north. Lieutenant Foley estimated the height of Jika, a hill not 
far from the coast, to the south or south-south-west of the town of Ramri, at 
3,000 feet, but this requires confirmation. The highest Revenue Survey Station 
on the island is about 700. 
Between the various ridges, and stretching to either side of the tidal creeks 
by which the island is intersected, arc alhivial flats which arc often of large area, 
and taken together constitute an important proportion of the island. As an illus¬ 
tration of the extent to which the latter is penetiuted by such creeks, it may be 
mentioned that, at high tide, boats of 10 or 12 fathoms length can go up the 
Minyat River to the village of the same name, which is within less than rivo 
miles of the western coast. 
My acquaintance with Cheduba is confined to the eastern side. Captain 
Halsted, however, who surveyed the island, describes the general features thus: 
“ Its general appearance and character is that of a fertile well-wooded island of mo¬ 
derate height, and irregular outline. A band of level plain, but little raised above 
the sea, extends around its coast,s, of far greater width on the east than on the 
west; within this lie irregular, low, undulating hills, varying in height from 50 to 
500 feet, enclosing several higher detached mounds of steep, well-wooded sides, 
the loftie.st of which, near the south part of the island, rises nearly 1,400 feet.”" 
The larger of the outlying islands are very similar to the main ones, on 
a smaller scale; low rounded hills from 100 to perhaps 300 foot high rising from 
cultivated alluvial plains. 
’ Tide Admiralty Chart of Bay of Bengal, 1876, sheet 4. 
® On the map of the province of Pogn, scale 8 railes=l inch, puhlishcd in the Surveyor 
Generars Office, 1856, ,a hill, presumably that alluded to by Captain Halsted, is mai-ked 1,700 feet. 
