PT. 2.] 
Wynne. Surat Colleclorate. 
27 
Geological Notes on the Surat Collectorate, Season 1862-63, by A. B. 
Wynne, 1'. G. S.—The Collectorate of Surat lies in the Bombay Presidency on the west side 
of India between the 20th and 22nd parallels of North Latitude and the 72nd and 74th degrees 
of East Longitude, Greenwich. Its southern extremity reaches to the Damaungunga 
river, about 100 miles north of Bombay, and passes between the small maritime Portuguese 
settlement of Damaun, and a somewhat larger territory called Nuggnr Huvellee, about 
30 miles to the east, also belonging to the Portuguese. On the west it is bounded by 
the Arabian Sea, and on the north for some 40 miles by the little river Keem. Beyond 
the village of Keemchokey the northern boundary becomes irregular, extending, however, 
generally eastward for 50 miles to the Bajpeepla hills. The eastern boundary of this 
Collectorate is very irregular: it runs for some 30 miles through the above named hills till 
it reaches the Taptee river; there it turns to the west with the stream for a few miles, and 
then strikes oil’ to the south, keeping outside the hilly district called the Daung, and after 
many bends approaches the sea between it and the Dhurrumpoor country, so that the 
district becomes of very small width compared with that which it has to the north. 
The principal places in the district are the city of Surat and the towns of Bhodan on 
the Taptee, Turkeesaur and Oolpar in the north, and Nosaree, Gundavee and 
Bulsar to the south. 
General form of the ground.—This district lying, as it does, between the hills 
forming the north ern end of the Western Ghats range and the sea can only be called hilly 
in the north-eastern corner, which includes some of the Bajpeepla group. The rest of it 
consists of one great plain nowhere quite level, in some places undulating sharply, and in 
others rising into wide, swelling, smooth eminences, and it is here and there at intervals 
broken by abrupt isolated hills, like those south of Turkeesaur, outliers of the Bajpeepla 
group; one north of Mota village, a few more on the eastern side of the district, the 
conspicuous hill of Parneira surmounted by its ruined Mahratta fort, and others at and 
near Bugwarra. The whole country slopes slightly to the west; it is crossed by numerous 
streams from the east. And as the tide flows for a considerable distance up the channels 
of these (in the Taptee, for instance, to beyond Surat), the whole country can have but a 
small general elevation above the sea probably not more than 150 feet, if so much. 
The coast is everywhere low 7 , and for some distance inland in the north part of the 
district barren, salt and sandy, plains extend. Being thickly populated and much under 
cultivation the country is only here and there overrun by jungle, which is, however, very 
dense in some places, chiefly along the streams at the east side of the Collectorate. 
In such a country it is difficult to find characteristic features, and yet it has a charac¬ 
teristic aspect produced by the repetition of similarities. 
The many 7 undulations of the plains are too slight and too numerous to take any definite 
direction at a glance, but the larger of them forming the watersheds of the rivers run like 
the latter more or less east and west; and w 7 hen the isolated hills take anything of a ridge¬ 
like form they run most frequently, like the coast and the neighbouring limits of the hills, 
more nearly north and south than east and west. 
If the plains, however, present few rising grounds as projections they are broken by 
numerous deep ravines—nullahs and kharries along the courses of the rivers and their tributary 
streams. These ravines are, of course, deepest towards the sea, hut further inland the rivers 
run between cliffs frequently from 50 to 80 feet in height. 
Taken generally the district may be described as flat, with isolated hills in the south, 
and bordered on the east by a hilly and jungly tract.* 
Belations between the form of the ground and its Geological Structure. 
—These are not so obvious as they at first sight might appear. The reason of this is, 
apparently, that the limits of the space under description, although embracing a considerable 
tract of country, are not sufficiently extensive to enable us to generalize. 
Certainly as we approach the south the hills are more numerous, and it is ascertained 
that all the underlying rocks as well as the hills themselves consist of trap. On the east side 
of the district this is also the case, and glancing at the whole country in the neighbourhood, 
we find a group of trappean hills (extensions of the ‘ Western GMts' of India) on the east 
* Famous for the prevalence of fever at nearly all seasons of the year, ami bearing the name of the Dauus. 
