176 FOOTE: SOUTH MAHRATTA COUNTRY. 



Superintendent, Geological Survey of India, in his very interesting 

 sketch of the traps and intertrappean beds of Western and Central 

 India,* where he demonstrates the subaerial outpouring of the great lava 

 streams. 



On the question of the age of the Deccan trap no fresh light has 



been obtained in working out its southern bound- 

 Age of the trap series. . p -i-p 1 f. 1 ^ - , 



aries, lor no tossilirerous rocks of determined ao-e 



have been found either under- or over-lying the trap-flows. 



It will be needful, ere the relative ages of the great trap-flows of 

 the south can be compared with those of the north, that the ghats and 

 their o-reat western scarp shall be examined from the Phonda Ghat to 

 the Mahabaleshwar mountains. 



The position occupied by the intertrappean beds accompanying the 

 „ ,, . , traps is relatively the same as that of the corre- 



Horizon of the inter- r J 



trappean beds. sponding beds occurring in Central India, for like 



them they occur low down in the series and near what will be shown 



further on to be (locally at least) its base. 



The intertrappean beds are of small extent, and appear to have been 

 Their position geogra- formed in small lakes filling local depressions of 

 phically. ^]^Q surface. They were observed only along, or 



near to, the south-eastern edge of the trap area. 



The o-randest sections of the trap series are to be seen in the great 

 s f ■ th o-reat western scarp of the Sahyadri mountains ; but these 

 western scarp. ^^,q often, from their vast size, difficult to study, as 



some of the great basaltic flows form long unbroken lines of cliff" several 

 hundred feet in height. They may, however, be advantageously 

 examined along the two great military roads which have of late years 



* Memoirs of the Geological Survey of India, Vol. VI, p. 145. 



176 ) 



