SYNOPSIS OF PREVIOUS OBSERVATIONS. 27 



age of tlie several formations. The hypogene schists (now known as 

 the gneissie series) he shows to be the lowest of the stratified rocks. 

 He differs from Dr. Christie as to the age of the Kaladgi limestones 

 and shales which he shows to be unconformable as a rule to the 

 " hypogene schists." To the sandstone series he assigned no age in 

 the absence of fossil remains or other satisfactory evidence^ such as the 

 presence of diamonds, which might be held to correlate it with the 

 diamond sandstones of Central India and the eastern side of the 

 Peninsula. 



The "iron clay" and laterites he treats all as one formation, and 

 as of the same age as the coast laterite on the Coromandel and Malabar 

 Coasts (which are true sedimentary deposits, and frequently conglomeratic 

 in character), and argues against the theory of formation of lateritic 

 rocks by decomposition of trap and other ferruginous rocks. He inclines 

 to regard the laterite on the trap as a sedimentary formation analogous 

 to the inter-trappean beds. 



Coming to later deposits, he mentions having seen no gravels in 

 the South Mahratta Country. 



The age of the plutonic and trappean rocks is then discussed, 

 and he arrives at the conclusion that there were two eras of plutonic 

 disturbance, the first of which caused the metamorphism and up tilting 

 of the hypogene schists prior to the formation of the sandstones and 

 limestones, the second posterior to their deposition and accompanied by 

 another granitic eruption. 



He supposes a third period, or series of movements, during the 

 tertiary period, by which the laterite beds capping the trap formation 

 were raised in a horizontal position to the height of 7,000 feet or more, 

 this great upheaval being volcanic rather than plutonic in kind. 



The absence of unaltered fragments of undoubted granite or gneiss 

 among the pebbles in the conglomerate of the sandstone series led 

 Newbold to speculate on the subject ; and he concluded from it that 



( 27 ) 



