216 NARSINGHGARH TOIN-NARSINGHPUR. boldly scarped hill stands the fort, which was built in 1780 by Achal Singh. The palace of the chief is in the fort. Post-office, dispensary, and hospital. Narsinghgarh.-Ancient town in Damoh District, Central Provinces; situated in lat. 23° 59' N., and long. 79° 26' E., 12 miles northwest of Damoh town by the river Sunár, and on the route from Ságar to Rewa. The Muhammadans, who built the fort and mosque, called it Nasratgarh, and the Maráthás gave the present name. The latter erected a second fort, which the British troops partially destroyed in 1857. Police station. Narsinghpur. - District in the Chief Commissionership cf the Central Provinces, lying between 22° 45' and 23° 15' n. lat., and between 78° 38' and 79° 38' E, long. Bounded on the north by the State of Bhopal, with Ságar (Saugor), Damoh, and Jabalpur (Jubbulpore) Districts; on the east by Seoní; on the south by Chhindwará; and on the west by the river Dúdhi, which separates it from the District of Hoshangábád. Area, 1916 square miles. Population in 1881, 365,173. The administrative head-quarters are at the town of NARSINGHPUR. Physical Aspect.—The District of Narsinghpur forms the upper half of the Narbadá (Nerbudda) valley proper. The first of those wide alluvial basins which, alternating with rocky gorges, give so varied a character to the river's course, opens out just below the famous Marble Rocks at Bherághát, 15 miles east of the District boundary, and extends westward for 225 miles, including the whole of Narsinghpur together with the greater part of Hoshangábád. Probably these basins were originally lakes, more or less intimately connected and fed by a slowly flowing river, down which clayey scdiment was carried, and gradually and uniformly distributed over a considerable expanse of country. On the conglomeratc and clay thus deposited, lie 20 feet of the rich alluvium known as the regar or black cotton-soil of Central India. As originally constituted, Narsinghpur was confined to that part of the valley which is defined by three rivers--the Narbadá on the north, the Sáoner on the east, and the Dúdhi on the west, while the Satpura heights shut it in on the south. But since its formation, the District has been enlarged by the addition of two isolated tracts across the Narbadá. Of these, the easternmost is an insignificant patch of hill and ravine; that to the west is a small but fertilc valley, cnclosed by the river in a crescent-shaped bend of the Vindhyan range. To spcak of the Vindhyas, however, as a range of hills, is incorrect. Seen from the south, they present an almost uninterrupted series of headlands with projccting promontories and reccding bays, like a wcathcr-beaten coastline ; but these form the abrupt termination of a table-land stretching away to the north in gentle undulations, and not an independent range
