steeply, and the sandstone on the road itself is curiously divided
into parallelograms, like hollow bricks,* [I have seen similar bricks
in the sandstones of the coal-districts of Yorkshire; they are very
puzzling, and are probably due to some very obscure crystalline
action analogous to jointing and cleavage.] enclosing irregularly
shaped nodules, while in other places it looks as if it had been run
or fused: spherical concretions of sand, coloured concentrically by
infiltration, are common in it, which have been regarded as seeds,
shells, etc.; it also contained spheres of iron pyrites. The general
appearance of much of this rock is as if it had been bored by
_Teredines_ (ship worms), but I never detected any trace of fossils.
It is often beautifully ripple-marked, and in some places much
honeycombed, and full of shales and narrow seams of coal, resting on
a white under-clay full of root-fibres, like those of _Stigmaria._

At about 5000 feet the country is very open and bare, the ridges
being so uniform and flat-topped, that the broad valleys they divide
are hidden till their precipitous edges are reached; and the eye
wanders far east and west over a desolate level grassy country,
unbroken, save by the curious flat-topped hills I have described as
belonging to the limestone formation, which lie to the south-west.
These features continue for eight miles, when a sudden descent of 600
or 700 feet, leads into the valley of the Kala-panee (Black water)
river, where there is a very dark and damp bungalow, which proved a
very great accommodation to us.* [It may be of use to the future
botanist in this country to mention a small wood on the right of this
road, near the village of Surureem, as an excellent botanical
station: the trees are chiefly _Rhododendron arboreum,_ figs, oaks,
laurels, magnolias, and chestnuts, on whose limbs are a profusion of
_Orchideae,_ and amongst which a Rattan palm occurs.