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148
GOLD IN INDIA.
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At
the foot of the hills and at levels varying but slightly, there are
numerous swamps and flats (usually intersected by small water-courses)
which are in part cultivated by natives.
The
summits of the hills forming the subordinate ranges are from loo feet
to 403 feet and more above the level of these swampy flats. The swamps
are natural water-reservoirs, the water being stored in the strata
overlying the bed-rock. They are generally well grassed but some are
mere bags, or, where well sheltered, densely covered with screw-pines,
or, where partially drained, supporting a thick growth of thorny plants
and scrub.
The
streams having their sources in the hills after the burst of the
southwest monsoon and generally during the months of June, July,
August, and September, are torrents rushing over rocky beds, which on
reaching the low flat lands unite to form perennial streams. In October
there are often heavy-showers sufficient to swell the brooks; but in
November, December, January and February many of the sources are almost
dried up, the waters of the main streams decrease in volume; and in
March, April and May, the hat season, when dry harsh winds are not
infrequent, and when the grass in the earlier part of the season is on
fire on the hills, the tributaries of all the rivers exhibit a marked
difference of character.
The
smaller tributaries, the sources of the streams, have cut rather deep
channels in the sides of the main range and the hills ! the descent is
rapid and the direction of each nearly straight; it is only when they
unite and flow through the low level lands that they have a tortuous
course.
'
The soils on the slopes are, where protected, moderately good and deep.
In colour they are light reddish brown, brown, dark brown and nearly
black, the latter having a fair proportion of decomposing vegetable
matter. Elsewhere they are very thin resting on hard rock or on strong
tenaciou-; clays derived from the decomposition of the country rock in situ. These
clays are but little affected by the heavy rains: the surface of them
becomes glazed, and running water does not cut into them as it would do
if they were arenaceous. Where cuttings are made, the clays stand for a
height of fifteen feet or more perpendicularly, and, in some parts,
even for a vertical height of fifty feet, the rains scarcely affecting
the surfaces at all.
Clays
however that have been moved, carried down by the rains, and
re-deposited are, in comparison, rather easily disintegrated and washed
away.
Oa
the lower parts of many of the steep slopes the soil and stones carried
down during the monsoons form distinct but irregular layers and (though
rarely) strata somewhat resembling alluvial deposits. Heaps of gravel
and partially water-worn stones accumulate in the beds of the torrents,
where there is a sudden change of level, caused by a hard bar of rock
or a fall of rock, and the torrents, as their beds are deepened and the
courses are changed, have these loosely-formed beds as walls on one
side or other, rarely at the same spot on both.
The
numerous roads in the Wynaad at various heights and in many cases
nearly paralled to each other, whether made by the Government for the
purposes of general traffic or by the planters for convenient access
to various parts of their estates are invariably well made, and the
traces are good. They are sideling roads: the bank on one side of the
hill is cut away and the excavated earth and rock are made to form a
part of the road.
They
are necessarily, in a hilly country like that of the Wynaad, contour
lines, and the maps which accompany this report shew in what directions
they run; and, in the absence of a correct orographic map, give some
hints as to the general features of the country.
In
cutting these roads very many fair sections of the rocks and some
quartz veins have been exposed: and the mineralogist and geologist find
at numerous points as they travel along them much that instructs both
as regards the character of the country rock, its mode of decomposition
and its conservation, as well as the rather peculiar character of the
" leaders," " strings," and
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