142 POOTE : SOUTH MAHRATTA COUNTRY. 



four large hummocks upwards of 100 feet^high from among the shaley 

 sandstones, and actually towers over the surface of the limestone 

 plateau close by. 



The pebbly character of the basement beds shows them to have 

 been deposited in shallow water around the base of the low gneiss 

 hills, which probably formed islands in the sea which deposited the lower 

 part of the Bhima series. The materials of which these pebbly conglo- 

 merates were formed were evidently derived from the degradation of the 

 adjacent gneiss ; and this rock yielded the quartz and red felspar crystals 

 which make up the mass of the pebble beds. As the sea bed sank, the 

 character of the deposit changed till it attained the deep-sea character 

 of tlie Talikot limestone. 



As before mentioned, the basement bed is sometimes a gritty sand- 

 stone instead of a pebbly conglomerate, but the latter character is, on 

 the whole, predominant, as might be expected. 



The prevalent color of the conglomerate beds is a pale-brown, the 



matrix being generally of a lighter color than the 

 Prevalent colors. . 



included quartz and felspar fragments. A pinkish 



or reddish-brown color is, however, far from uncommon in the conglomer- 

 ate beds from the great quantity of comminuted red felspar they 

 contain. White and purplish colors are also met with locally. 



Some of the sandstones are rippled, and occasionally approximate 



in closeness of texture to true quartzites. Such 

 Eippling in quartzite. , j 4. t, j -• ^, 



is the case in a white sandstone bed resting on the 



very thin white pebbly conglomerate about a mile south-east-by-south of 

 the Nagurbetta hill, also in a brown sandstone occurring just within the 

 Kusnkunahal conglo- ^^^""^ (^g^^^) valley close to the village of Kusu- 

 ™®^^*^- kunahal (eleven miles west of Sorapur) . Here in 



parts of the bed the stone has the peculiar waxy lustre so characteristic of 

 ( 143 ) 



