88 SOANE VALLEY. Chap. II.
numerous, of six or seven kinds.# A small alliOgator
inhabits the hill streams, said to be a very different
animal from either of the Soane species.
On the following day we visited Raj ghat, a steep ghat
or pass leading up the cliff to Rotas Palace, a little
higher up the river. We took the elephants to the
mouth of the glen, where we dismounted, and whence
we followed a stream abounding in small fish and
aquatic insects (Dytisci and Gyrini), through a close
jungle, to the foot of the cliffs, where there were indications
of coal. The woods were full of monkeys, but
though dense, were very dry, containing no Palm,
Arums, Peppers, Orchids, or Ferns. The springs
were charged with lime, of which enormous tuff beds
were deposited on the sandstone, full of impressions of
the leaves and stems of the surrounding trees, which,
however, I found it very difficult to recognize; and I
could not help contrasting this circumstance with the
fact that so many geologists, unskilled in botany, see
no difficulty in referring equally imperfect remains of
extinct vegetables to existing genera. In some parts
of their course the streams take up quantities of the
efflorescence, which they scatter over the sandstones
in a singular manner.
On the 19th of February we marched up the Soane
to Tura, passing some low hills of limestone, between
the cliffs of the Kymore and the river. On the shaded
river-banks grew abundance of English genera —Cyno-
glossum, Veronica, Potentilla, Ranunculus sccleratus,
Rumex, several herbaceous Composites and Labiates ;
Tamarix formed a small bush in rocky hillocks in the