SEONI  , a

town and district of British India, in the Jubbulpore division of the Central Provinces . The town is 2043 ft. above sea-level, half-way on the Toad between Nagpur and Jubbulpore . Pop . (19o1) 11,864 . It was founded in 1774, and contains large public gardens, a fine market place and a handsome tank . The DISTRICT OF SEONI forms part of the Satpura tableland, containing the headwaters of the Wainganga . It is largely covered with forest, and 40% of the inhabitants belong to aboriginal tribes . Area 3206 sq. m . The district is remarkable for the beauty of its scenery and the fertility of its valleys . The northern and western portions include the plateaus of Lakhnadon and Seoni; the eastern section consists of the watershed and elevated basin of the Wainganga; and in the south-west is a narrow strip of rocky land known as Dongartal . The plateaus of Seoni and Lakhnadon vary in height from ',Soo to 2000 ft.; they are well cultivated and clear of jungle, and their temperature is always moderate and healthy . Geologically the north part of Seoni consists of trap hills and the south of crystalline rock .

The

soil of the plateaus is the rich black cotton soil formed by distintegrated trap, of which about two-thirds of the district are said to consist; but towards the south, where cliffs of gneiss and other primitive formations occur, the soil is silicious and contains a large proportion of clay . The chief river is the Wainganga, with its affluents the Hit-1, Sagar, Theii, Bijna and Thanwar; other streams are the Timar and the Sher, tributaries of the Nerbudda . The annual rainfall averages 53 in . The population in 1901 was 327,709, showing a decrease of 12% in the decade due to the effects of famine . The principal crops are wheat, millets, rice, pulse, oil-seeds and cotton . Three lines of the Bengal-Nagpur system traverse the district . There is also a town called Seoni, or Seoni-Malwa, in the Central Provinces, a railway station in Hoshangabad district . Pop . (1901) 7531 . See R . A . Sterndale, See-nee, or Camp Life on the Satpura Range (1877); Seoni District Gazetteer (Allahabad, 1907) .