SYNOPSIS OP PREVIOUS OBSERVATIONS. 20 



Vol. X, p. 287j of the Bombay Geographical Society's Transactions, in 

 which he endeavoured to prove that all the laterite in the Southern 

 Konkan as well as that above the Ghats is a product of deeompositiou 

 in situ of ferruginous rocks. He quotes a beautiful example of the 

 passage of trap into laterite at Viziadroog, and points out that even 

 the obscurely prismatic structure of the original trap bed is still visible 

 in the laterite exposed in the scarps of the fort ditches. Captain Wingate 

 thought that even the hard sandstones (quartzites) of the Phonda ghat 

 and Malwan weathered equally into a laterite but of a different character^, 

 gritty and full of undecomposed quartz. He also pointed' out the existence 

 on top of the ghats of laterite derived from the decomposition of both 

 metamorphic schists and traps. 



A geological report on the Bagalkot and part of the adjoining 

 Lieutenant Aytoim, ^^^^^^^ ^^ ^^^ Belgaum Collectorate* by Lieu- 

 1852-54. tenant Aytoun, of the Bombay Artillery, was the 



next contribution to the geology of the South Mahratta Country, This 

 is an elaborate paper, but very speculative in parts and by no means 

 lucid in others. He failed to realise the real relations of several forma- 

 tions, partly from ' attempting too much in a brief space of time and 

 when out of health, and partly from want of suiffieient experience as a 

 field geologist. His descriptions of roeks are generally good and trust- 

 worthy, but his attempts to explain their relative stratigraphical positions 

 are in various cases singularly unhappy, as will appear from a study of 

 his sections. 



He commences by supposing that the altered condition of the 

 sandstones, schists, and limestones met with in the district in qnestion^^ 

 is due to the presence of plutonie rocks underlying the sedimentary 

 formation from one end to the other, but nowhere visible on the surface. 

 Inequalities in the old surface on which the sandstones rest were looked 

 upon as intrusions. 



* Published in the Transactions of the Bombay Geographical Society, Vol. XI, 

 p. 20, 1854. 



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