40 FOOTB : SOUTH MAHUATTA COUNTRY. 



West of the Dharwar-Belgaum road, the gneiss is greatly obscured 

 by lateritic or lithomargie surface deposits, and beyond these, near Khana- 

 pur, a broad belt of granitoid gneiss, the bedding of which is doubtful. 

 Westward beyond this granitoid band is a great development of very 

 schistose, chiefly micaceous, gneiss, with some very thick beds of crys- 

 talline limestone, the strike of which is difficult to indicate, as the beds 

 roll about greatly at very low angles. 



These beds shew much the same position in the several sections at 

 Talewdri Ghat, and Bhimgarh, and in the Tillar ravine. 



The gneissic rocks in the Sawunt Wari and Ratnagiri Konkan 

 which were examined by Mr. C. J. Wilkinson, late of the Geological 

 Survey of India, are very varied in kind, more so a good deal than those 

 in the Deccan, comparing area with area, and their distribution appears 

 not to occur in such distinct bands. The several rock varieties also 

 occupy relatively much smaller areas in the Konkan than above the 

 ghats. - South of the Tillar river, the dip of the beds is generally north- 

 easterly ; while to the north of the river south-easterly dips are more pre- 

 valent. In the central part of the gneiss area the beds have often 

 southerly dips, while in the western and northern parts the bedding shews 

 numerous foldings with a north-north-westerly or northerly strike. 



In the southern part of the Konkan country, they form spurs and 

 hills of great height, little inferior in elevation to the ghats themselves; 

 as for example, the spurs branching from the Sadda promontory of the 

 ghats and the Pargarh, Bhekurle and Hammantgarh spurs. Further 

 north, as the trap region is approached, the gneissic rocks shew signs of 

 their having been greatly denuded and reduced to a great plain by 

 marine deaudation anterior to the deposition of the Kaladgi series 

 which lie upon that plane surface. 



The principal varieties of the gneissic rocks described by Mr. 

 Wilkinson are, true gneiss, micaceous and hornblendic schists, older 

 quartzites and altered micaceous sandstones, together with some sub- 



( 40 ) 



