178 FOOTE : SOUTH MAHRATTA COUNTRY. 



fossiliferous rocks underlie them to show when they were poured out. 

 They are most probably of much greater age than the basement flows 

 seen above the ghats^ and in the Deccan they may also be much older 

 than the basement flows in Central India. 



The great mural precipices in the western scarp are all in basaltic 



beds ; many, if not all, of which show rudely 

 Mural scarps. 



prismatic cleavage, a feature to which in all probabi- 

 lity they owe the comparatively very small amount of change they have 

 undergone. In this they difl^er widely from the horizontally-jointed 

 flows in which very extensive decomposition into a ferruginous vesicular 

 quasi-lateritie iron-clay has taken and is now taking place. 



The series of flows seen in the bare hills surrounding the taluq town 



of Chikori, in the northern part of Belgaum district, 

 Chikdri section. 



consists of six basaltic flows, the three lowest of 



which are separated from each other by thin beds of amygdaloid trap and 



red bole, the latter lying irregularly on the rough surface of the 



amygdaloid. The upper flows are themselves separated by thin boliferous 



beds, part of which may be volcanic ashes. The two middle flows, though 



quite distinct, show no intercalated matter. The whole makes up a 



thickness of 600 to 700 feet, of which the three lower basaltic flows 



occupy fully two-thirds. 



A very good section is also afforded by the bare flanks of the 



Section on Baged Gud- Baged Gudda, which is a bold table-topped mass 



da 



attaining an elevation of 2,667 feet according to 



the Great Trigonometrical Surveyors, and standing 700 to 800 feet or 



more above the general level of the country. The flows here as seen 



from the south are eight in number, over the watershed ridge dividing 



the valleys of the Ghatprabha and Krishna. They are much more 



easy to distinguish from a distance, as the ruggedness of the slopes often 



( 178 ) 



