Page:Madras Journal of Literature and Science, series 1, volume 6 (1837).djvu/478

450 To the west of the Sambhunath hill again where there is a stone quarry, the rock is either of grey granite, or of a crumbling sort of band-stone tinged with a reddish yellow colour. The Gankorun hill is composed, at its northern extremity, of hard granite with a superficial stratum of clayey slate, which is under constant decay, leaving a reddish clay soil along the sides. The granitic portion is exposed to the extent of 20 or 30 yards in the bed of the Bagmutti as it passes through a cleft on the northern extremity of the hill, the stratum forming an obtuse angle (say of 20 degrees) with the horizon. Of whatever variety, the superficial soil most, I think, be regarded as a debris formed during ages of decay from the surrounding mountains; for although the composition of the soils occupying the central parts of the basin may not be easily traceable at the present day to their mountain progeners, the similarity in many places of the soil along the mountain bases, and stretching for many hundred yards beyond them into the valley to the earthy or rocky formation of the hills immediately over them is distinctly manifest. An example or two of this may be recorded the southern aspect of the Sheopooree boundary, is formed, to an elevation of about 800 or 1,000 feet from the mountain's base, of a white micaceous sand-stone, and we find the superficial stratum of soil which extends into the valley, on the higher level, for about a mile, of a very light sandy nature, largely mixed with mica. The superficial stratum of the valley face of the Nagarjun mountain is principally composed of a stiff and hard red clay, to which we find corresponding in the whole of the cultivated land lying along its base from the Sumbhunath hill to Ballajee, a distance of three miles, a great predominance of this substance.

The process of addition to the valley land from the mountain debris is in some places at this time in such active operation, as to be distinctly observable in annual additions to the cultivated spots extending up the declivities of the mountains. On the valley aspect of Chandragiree which forms the south west boundary, this process is very obvious. The valley by traditional lore is described as having been aa immense lake, the Sumbhunathand Pusputnath hills forming lands on which the gods found resting places and appropriate sites on which to be worshipped. The drawing off the waters is of course ascribed to the direct agency of some of the local deities, and "the Sabre cut," though the southern boundary of the valley forming the only outlet for the present waters, and the one by which the lake was emptied, is still pointed out as the handy work of a renowned demi-god (Manja Ghosa by name). An earthquake, with which the people of the Himalayas