A retrospect of the ground passed over is unsatisfactory,
as far as botany is concerned, except as showing
how potent are the effects of a dry soil and climate
during one season of the year upon a vegetation which
has no desert types. During the rains probably many
more species would be obtained, for of annuals I
scarcely found twenty: at that season, however, the
jungles of Behar and Birbhoom, though far from
tropically luxuriant, are singularly unhealthy.
In a geographical point of view the range of hills
between Burdwan and the Soane is interesting, as
being the north-east continuation of a chain which
crosses the broadest part of the peninsula of India,
from the gulf of Cambay to the junction of the Ganges
and Hoogly at Eajmahal. This range runs south of
the Soane and Kymore, which it meets I believe at
Omerkuntuk :* further west again, they separate, the
southern forming the Satpur range, which divides
the valley of the Taptee from that of the Nerbudda.
The Parasnath range is, though the most difficult of
definition, the longer of the two parallel ranges ; the
Vindhya, continued as the Kymore, terminating
abruptly, at the Fort of Chunar on the Ganges. The
general and geological ‘features of the two, especially
along their eastern course, are very different. This
range consists of gneiss, through which granite hills
protrude, the loftiest of which is Parasnath. The northeast
Vindhya (called Kymore), on the other hand,
consists of nearly horizontal beds of sandstone, over-
lying inclined beds of limestone. Between the latter
* A lofty mountain said to be 7000—8000 feet high.
and the Parasnath gneiss, come (in order of superposition)
beds of quartz, homstone, jaspers, &c. These
are thrown up, by greenstone I believe, along the
north and north-west boundary of the gneiss range,
and form the rocks of Colgong, of Sultangunj, and of
Monghyr, on the Ganges, as also various detached
hills near Gyah, and along the upper course of the
Soane. From these are derived the beautiful agates
and cornelians, so famous under the name of Soane
pebbles, and they are equally common on the Curruck-
pore range, as on the south bank of the Soane, so
much so as to have been used in the decoration of the
walls of the now ruined palaces near Bhagulpore.
In the route I had taken, I had crossed the eastern
extremity alone of the range, commencing with a very
gradual ascent to the table-land, properly so called. A
little beyond the coal fields, this table-land reaches an
average height of 1130 feet, which is continued for
upwards of 100 miles, to the Dunwah pass. Here the
descent is sudden to plains, which, continuous with
those of the Ganges, run up the Soane till beyond
Botasghur. Except for the occasional ridges mentioned
above, and some hills of greenstone, the lower plain is
stoneless, its subjacent rocks being covered with a
thicker stratum of the same alluvium which is thinly
spread over the higher table-land above. This range
is of great interest from its being the source of many
important rivers, and of all those which water the
country between the Soane, Hoogly, and Ganges; as
well as from its deflecting the course of the latter river,
which washes its base at Eajmahal, and forcing it to