3862.] Account of a visit to Puppa doung. 217 
Pagan to the foot of Puppa, is composed of the series of sands and 
gravels, with occasional conglomerate beds, which occupies so large 
a portion of the valley of the Irawaddi between Ava and Prome, and 
sections of which abound on the river banks between Pagan and 
Meulha, especially in the neighbourhood of Yenankhyoung. Many 
details concerning them will be found in Dr. Oldham’s notes on the 
geological features of the banks of the Irawaddi, published as an 
appendix to Col. Yule’s “Narrative.” In these beds, bones of Mas¬ 
todon, Elephant, Khinoceros, Bos and other ruminants, Tortoise, 
Crocodile, &c., occur in several places, as at Yenankhyoung, Pakhan- 
nge, in the Yau country west of Pagan, &c., and they contain the 
silicified fossil wood, the abundance of which in this portion of Bur¬ 
ma is so remarkable. About Pagan, and to the E. and N. E. of the 
town, the country occupied by these rocks is less intersected by ra¬ 
vines than is the case further south, and from the undulating plain 
which slopes gradually and gently upwards from the river, the out¬ 
crops of the harder nummulitic beds, which underlie the more recent 
sands, project, here and there, in the form of straight steep ridges of 
sandstone of no great height. One of the most prominent of these 
is the Taywan doung, which stretches for eight or ten miles in a 
nearly straight line from N. 20 W. to S. 20 E., the dip of the beds 
being at an angle of about 40° to W. 20 S. 
I climbed to the Pagoda at the N. W. end of the range for the 
purpose of obtaining a few bearings, and from this point I had the 
first good view of Puppa. Prom some delay in starting, and a halt 
about midday for breakfast, together with a few eccentricities on the 
part of my guide, it was by this time afternoon, and the sun had 
sunk considerably, so that it shone from behind me upon the moun¬ 
tain. Dr. Oldham, who also saw Puppa from this spot, suggested 
that it might be formed of metamorphic rocks, like the mountains 
E. of Ava, and its appearance produced precisely the same impres¬ 
sion upon me, although I could see distinctly, even at this distance, 
that the highest part of the mountain did not consist of a straight 
ridge, but of a semicircular one, surrounding a central hollow, which 
suggested a volcanic origin. But such an appearance is not rare in 
high peaks of gneiss or schistose rocks. There is one remarkable 
instance in Beerbhoom, about thirty miles S. of Deogurh, in a hill 
called Patardha. 
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