94 FOOTE : SOUTH MAHRATTA COUNTRY. 



fireSj that it is often difficult to recognize the real nature o£ detached 

 masses except on close inspection. 



5. Quartzites and sandstones in the Konhan. 

 Below the ghats, and especially near the foot of the Phonda ghat, 

 Konkan quartzites of which leads from Kohlapoor toRatnagherry, is an im- 

 a a gi age. portant development of these rocks, which, as above 



stated, must, on petrological and stratigraphical grounds, he reckoned as 

 belonging to the quartzite series of the Lower Kaladgi group. The main 

 mass of these rocks, which were worked out by Mr. C. J. Wilkinson, late 

 of the Geological Survey of India, occupies a patch of country, about ten 

 miles square, close to the base of the Western Ghats, but they occur also 

 in a number of detached patches forming outliers on the gneissic rocks 

 and inliers among the overlying trappean and lateritic rocks. These 

 patches are chiefly situated to the south-west of the Phonda ghat and 

 near the sea. Several quartzite-sandstone hills occur in the northern 

 part of the patch, one of which, Salwa hill, attains a height of about 

 800 to 900 feet. It is capped by a thick bed of pink sandstone which 

 is either horizontal or has a very small dip to the west. There are other 

 high hills or spurs on the edge of the ghats formed of similar sandstones 

 resting on the gneissic rocks, which hills or spurs are capped by the 

 same thick bed of sandstone. The sandstones there dip eastward, the 

 two portions of the beds on the respective hills being apparently the 

 remains of a low anticlinal arch. The position of the trap-flows at 

 the bases of these hills shows that they had been in great measure shaped 

 by erosive forces acting prior to the outpouring of the trap-flows. 



Of the other outlying patches of Kaladgi rocks the most important 

 is that on which stands the village of Achura, or Achre, near the mouth 

 of the river of the same name. The sandstones here found form hills 

 to the north of Chindur in which the shales belonging to this part of 

 the series are not well seen ,• but better sections are to be found in the 

 river banks, where the shales are seen associated with the lowest sand- 



( 94 ) 



