20 FOOTE : SOUTH MAHRATTA COUNTRY. 



The well-known paper on the geology of a portion of Dukhun, 



East Indies, read before the Geological Society of 

 Colonel Sykes. 1833. , -r • /-. i i o. i 



London by Lieutenant-Colonel Sykes, r. E. s., 



H. I. c. s., touched very slightly upon the South Mahratta Country, 

 merely referring to the extension of the Deccan trap to the Krishna, 

 south of Bijapur. In speaking of the extent of the trap area, he 

 assumed that a basaltic dyke in the neighbourhood of Seringapatam 

 (described by Dr. Voysey) must belong to the Deccan trap, thus assign- 

 ing a vastly greater extension to the great trap area than is warranted 

 by the evidence. He drew no distinction between the low-level Konkdn 

 laterite and the iron-clay capping the trap flows on the summits of 

 the Western Ghats, some 3 or 4,000 feet above the former. He assumed 

 also with Dr. Voysey, that the basis of the whole peninsula of 

 India and Ceylon consisted o£ granite, and was therefore of igneous 

 orio'in. The metamorphic origin of many granitoid rocks had not then 

 been recognized. 



The first general sketch of the geological structure of the South 

 Mahratta Country was given by Alexander Turn- 

 bull Christie, M. D., and published in the Madras 

 Journal of Literature and Science. Though many of his conclusions 

 cannot be accepted now, it is impossible not to admire his work as that 

 of a painstaking and accurate observer ; but he was unfortunately tram- 

 melled by a strong desire to bring the rocks of the peninsula into abso- 

 lute correlation with the classification then in vogue in Europe. 



He was not fully aware of the occurrence of large and important 

 bands of schistose rocks in the Raichur Doab ; and, in common with his 

 predecessors and contemporaries, regarded the great bands of granitoid 

 o-neiss, so largely developed in and beyond the Doab, as true granites. 

 His description of the scenery in such granitoid districts is very good 

 and true. He had observed the predominance of the hornblendic variety 

 of granitoid rocks, and mentions the very handsome porphyritic form 

 occurring at Gajendragarh (Gudjunturgarh) . The great quartz-runs 



( 20 ) 



