Page:Madras Journal of Literature and Science, series 1, volume 6 (1837).djvu/370

Ghats.—The Dukhun rises, by a succession of terraces or steps, very abruptly from the Konkun.^[1] Its valleys and table-lands have a mean elevation above the sea of about 1800 feet. The Konkun is a long strip of land from thirty to fifty miles in breadth, lying between the ghats and the sea; the mean elevation of this strip is less than one hundred feet; but it is bristled with isolated hills, or short ranges, some of which attain an elevation equalling that of the ghats. Numerous shoulders or salient angles are thrown out from the ghats from the western or Konkun side, and by means of these the ascent to Dukhun is effected; with what difficulty, will be understood when I state that the military road of communication between Bombay and Poona, up the Bore ghat, rises nearly six hundred feet in a mile. The western portion of my tract along the crest of the ghats is exceedingly strong: spurs of different lengths extend from the main range to the eastward and south-east, leaving many narrow tortuous valleys between them, some of which have the character of gigantic cracks or fissures; other valleys, although occurring less frequently, when looked at from the neighbouring ranges, appear as flat and smooth as a billiard-table, even to the crest of the ghats, but when traversed are found to be cut up by numerous narrow and deep ravines.^[2] Stupendous scarps, fearful chasms, numerous waterfalls, dense forests, and perennial verdure, complete the majesty and romantic interest of the vicinity of the ghats. As the spurs extend to the east and south-east they diminish in height, until they disappear on approaching the open plains in my eastern limits, between the Beema and Seena rivers. The area of the table land on their summit often exceeds that of the valley between them: such is the case with the spur bordering the left bank of the Beema river for forty miles from its source, occupying, in fact, the whole country between the sources of the Beema and Goreh rivers. The spurs are rarely tabular for their whole length, but narrow occasionally into ridges capped with compact basalt, and subsequently expand into extensive table-lands. The spur originating in the hill fort of Hurreechundurghur affords a good example. The fort is about eighteen miles in circumference: on the east it presents a salient angle to the neighbouring mountain; absolute contact, however, only commences at about four hundred feet from the top of the scarp, leaving

columnar in many places, and at Gawelghur it appears stratified; the summits of several ravines presenting a continued stratum of many thousand yards in length."—Physical Class of the Asiatic Researches, p. 189.

1. See Plate 9.
2. The valley of the Malsej ghat, for instance.