It lies between 20° 23′ and 21° 10' north latitude, and 76° 25′ and 77° 19' east longitude, in an almost square block right across, north and south, from hill-range to hill-range. Its square shape is disturbed by a small arm, a thirty-mile extension necessarily included under administrative arrangements (as a portion of a taluk and pargana), lying on the north-west between the hills and the Púrna river, which drains the valley. This river runs through the district east and west, with a northerly inclination of six and a half miles in the sixty-three miles extent contained in it, and divides it into two almost equal parts. Boundaries. The district is bounded on the north by the Sátpura* range of hills; on the east by the East Berár division, Elichpúr district; on the south by the Sátmál or Ajanta range continuation; and on the west by the Buldána district up to the Púrna, and by Khandesh on the north of that river, save where it just touches the Central Provinces above Jalgaon. Its greatest length, north and south, is seventy-two miles; and Area. It contains 1,726,625 acres, or 2,697 square miles. 41,197 acres, or 64 miles, are alienated land held rent-free as jagirs (integral villages), and as inám (detached freeholds). The remainder (1,685,428 acres, or 2,633 square miles) appertains to the State. In this quantity there are (1869) 34,671 acres, or 54 square miles, of entirely unarable land; 31,762 acres, or 49 square miles, are river and nalla beds and tanks; 4,128 acres, or 64 square miles, are taken up in bábúl reserves; 6,750 acres, or 10 square miles, are taken up in village sites; 53,460 acres, or 83 square miles, are reserved for pasturage; and 101,069 acres, or 1,573 square miles, are absorbed in various public uses: leaving 1,453,586 acres, or 2,271 square miles, of arable land yielding rent, and of which 1,26,583 acres, or 2,072 square miles, are under cultivation, and 127,003 acres, or 1984 square miles, are waste. General description. Situation and boundaries. Bulda'na District. The Buldana district forms the south-western portion of the West Berár division of the Haidarábád Assigned Districts. It lies between 19° 50′ and 21° north latitude, and 76° and 76° 51′ east longitude. It is bounded on the north by the river Púrna; on the east by the districts of Akola and Basim; on the south by the Nizám's territory; and on the west by the same territory and a portion of Khandesh district in the Bombay Presidency. Of the three taluks into which it is divided, the southern two form a part of the tract of country known as Berár Bálághát, or Berár above the *The Satpura hills, in Sanscrit " Vindyádri," or rather a part of the Vindya mountain-system. General Description. District Selections. General Description. District Selections. gháts, while the third is in the valley of the Púrna or Berár Proper. The military cantonments of Jálna and Hingoli are about twelve miles outside the borders of the district, to the west and south respectively. The area of the district is 6,808 square miles, and its population, as ascertained by the census taken in 1867, is 400,095 souls. Area and population. Above the ghats the general contour of the country may be described as a succession of small plateaux Physical features. decreasing in elevation from the northward, where the greatest height is attained, to the extreme south, where a series of small ghats bound the district and separate it from His Highness the Nizám's dominions. The small plateaux above mentioned are intersected by streams running through fertile valleys, which, though of small extent, contain most of the villages in the northern and western portions of the district. These streams, though not perennial, supply water for the greater portion of the year; while in the valleys there are, besides, numbers of wells yielding particularly pure and good water. Towards the eastern side of the district the country assumes more the character of undulating high lands, favoured with soil of remarkably fine quality, and yielding crops of wheat which will bear comparison with any produced in India. Boundaries. Ba'sim District. The boundaries of the Básim district are: North-Portions of the General description. Area. Position. The exact area is not known, but is entered at 2,451 square miles by approximate estimate. This district may be said to be from 19° 30′ to 20° 25' longitude, and latitude 76° 40' to 78°. As the districts of Akola, Amráoti, and Elichpúr may be called the lowlands of Berár, so Básim, Buldána, and Wún may be called its highlands. Of the two taluks in this district, Básim is in part a rich tableland with a land revenue of Rs. 2,07,697-14-10, of which Rs. 13,718-2-10 is on account of jágir land. Púsad is principally a succession of low waste hills, the soil of which is often of too poor a quality to supply anything but a very poor quality of grass. The land revenue is Rs. 1,14,908-13-0, of which Rs. 11,313-5-0 is on account of jágir land. The hollows between these hills are usually of the best soil; but only a small portion of this good soil has been as yet taken up. Básim taluk is about 1,000 feet above the level of the sea; Púsad perhaps about 1,150 feet. Wu'n District. The Wún district forms the south-east portion of the Haidarábád between 19° 30' and 20° 46′ cast longitude. It is bounded on the north by the Amráoti district; on the east by Wardha and Chánda districts; on the south by the Nizám's dominions; and on the west by portions of the Básim and Amráoti districts. The area is estimated at 3,957 square miles. The extreme length, east and west, is 114 miles. CHAPTER II. MOUNTAINS, GEOLOGY, AND MINERALS. SECTION I.-Mountains and Geological Formation. The mass of hill-country which walls-in Berár on the north has been called the Gáwilgarh range, from the fort of that name which stands on one of the highest mountain buttresses that directly overlook the plain. Seen from the plain below, this range bounds the horizon with a bold irregular sky-line, gradually rising higher as it runs from the west to the east, and accentuated by summit elevations varying from 3,000 to a maximum of above 4,000 feet. Its extent, general shape, and geological formation are described in the subjoined extracts from an article by Dr. Voysey in the Asiatic Researches. It forms the outermost southern barrier of the mountain group called Satpura, which is locally interpreted to mean seven-fold, because you cannot travel from the Berár valley to the Narbada without crossing seven distinct ridges. Dr. Voysey writes (1823) :— "They" (the Gáwilgarh hills) "take their rise at the confluence of the Púrna and Tapti rivers, and, running nearly east and by north, terminate at a short distance beyond the sources of the Tapti and Wardha. To the southward they are bounded by the valley of Berár, and to the north by the course of the Tapti. The length of the range is about one hundred and sixty English miles, and average breadth from twenty to twenty-five miles. "On the southward side they rise abruptly from the extensive plain of Berár, the average height of which is one thousand feet above the level of the sea, and tower above it to the height of two and three thousand feet. The descent to the bed of the Tapti is equally rapid, although the northern is less elevated than the southern side of the range. The outline of the land is generally flat, but much broken by ravines and by groups of flattened summits and isolated conoidal frusta. The summits and the flat land are generally remarkably destitute of trees, but thickly covered by long grass. * Subjoined are the principal elevations arranged in series from west to east : General Description. District Selections, Mountains and Geological Formation. Mountains and Geological Formation. "The principal part of the whole range is formed of compact basalt, very much resembling that of the Giant's Causeway. It is found columnar in many places, and at Gáwilgarh it appears stratified, the summits of several ravines presenting a continued stratum of many thousand yards in length. "The basalt frequently and suddenly changes into a wacken, of all degrees of induration, and, I may say, of every variety of composition usually found among trap-rock. "In external appearance the columnar and semi-columnar basalt closely resembles that of the Giant's Causeway, possessing the same fracture, internal dark colour, and external brown crust. It is equally compact and sonorous. It, however, contains more frequently crystals of olivine, of basaltic hornblende, and of carbonate of lime. The fusibility of each is the same. Perhaps the basalt of the Gáwilgarh range more nearly resembles in every respect that of the Pouce Mountain in the Mauritius." Below the Gawilgarh range lies the Páyanghát, or valley of the Púrna river. Its geology has been recently examined by Mr. A. B. Wynne, of the Geological Survey, who writes thus* : "The valley of the Púrna possesses but little variety of geological interest, and is principally distinguished by monotonous repetitions of features observable in crossing the Dakhan from the seaward to this locality, where each hill and ghát and undulating slope or plain exhibits similar kinds of nearly horizontal flows of gray amygdaloidal trap, with here and there a bed of harder texture of columnar structure, or of bright red bole, or alternations of these, the traps sometimes containing numerous zeolites. "In the river valleys, and where superficial rain-wash' has accumulated, a light brown' kunkury' alluvium is associated with calcareous sub-recent conglomerate below and black cotton soil above, one being quite as occasional and accidental as the other, the conglomerate or concrete being perhaps the most persistent along the river courses, the brown alluvium or (?) "soda soil" more universal, and the cotton soil occurring subject only to the rule that it is always uppermost. "The alluvium of this great plain, although of very considerable depth, and occupying so large an area, is as completely isolated from that of the neighbouring rivers as such a deposit can be said to be. A section crossing the valley from the Ajanta Gháts, by Edalábád across the Púrna river, to the western termination of the Gáwilgarh range, would show the ordinary trap of the Dakhan forming the high ground at either end, and an undulating country between, which, viewed from above or from a distance, has a plain-like aspect, * Records of the Geological Survey, vol. ii., part 1. 6 but frequently exposes the rocks of which it is formed, consisting of the usual traps, here and there covered only by slight detrital accumulations of the same kinds as those of the Dakhan. Except on the very banks of the Púrna, no considerable quantity of alluvial matter would be found, and this does not extend far from the river at either side. North and south through Malkapúr a different section would be obtained. Here a wide space, chiefly on the south. side of the Púrna, is occupied by fine brown calcareous alluvium withkunkur,' and is connected by a narrow neck, at Piprála, with the great alluvial deposit of this valley, which in thickness may exceed 150 feet; and nothing else save varieties of this is to be seen in or near the river from Dádalgaon on its south bank eastwards up the stream to the sangam' or junction of the Pherli river, which enters the Púrna near Kowsa, if we except two or three small exposures of trap in its bed near Piprála, Pulsod, and about three miles west of Bara Golágaon. The Púrna changes its course from the north-north-east at the junction of the abovenamed tributary, and thence takes a westerly direction, the alluvium on its south side seldom extending beyond an average of ten miles from the river, and nearly coinciding along its southern boundary with the Nágpúr extension of the Great Indian Peninsula railway, while on the north it reaches nearly to the base of the mountains. On the east its rather arbitrary and more or less indefinite boundary closely approaches the watershed of Elichpúr, and bending southward traverses undulating country, eventually reaching the flanks of the hills near Amráoti. "All round the margin of this alluvial tract is a belt of country that might, or might not, with propriety be included within it, although the surface-deposits there do not conceal the underlying rock, the exposure of which was taken as the chief guide in determining the line of boundary. On the north and east this tract of country is very stony, though nothing resembling an old beach is seen, and it may be supposed that streams descending from the mountains and hills have frequently travelled across this space, their courses subject to lateral deviation, covering the whole of it with coarser fragments brought down by floods at a time, perhaps, when the water of a lake or the sea occupied the basin of the finer alluvium, and arrested the boulder-bearing velocity of these mountain streams. "In every part of the alluvium calcareous conglomerate or concrete is of common occurrence. It occasionally contains fragments of bone or fossil teeth of ruminants; but, although sought for, no large accumulation, nor even a large fragment, of these fossils was observed. Yet enough was seen to show an identity of the conditions under which these deposits and those of the Narbada valley were formed. This sub-recent conglomerate is very frequent in the stony tract above mentioned. It was everywhere searched for worked flints but without success, although one flake was found in a quite similar deposit, forming the right bank of the Godávari at Paithan, in the Dakhan, at a considerable distance to the south. Mountains, and Geological Formation. |