DECCAN TRAP. 185 



up of these flows, the two uppermost of which form distinct bands or 

 narrow terraces round the hill, which is capped with a porcelanoid 

 iron-clay bed, to be described further on. The aggregate vertical 

 thickness of these several flows is probably between 300 and 400 feet. 

 The basement bed here consists of an earthy dirty pale-green colored 

 mass of nodular trap, wonderfully broken up by 



Thickness of flows. i i • i i • mi • i • 



the spherical weathering. The concentric laminae 

 are very friable, but the nuclei, which are generally small (rarely larger 

 than an orange), consist of hard and tough bluish or greenish basalt, 

 enclosing a few grains of a bluish-white quartz-like mineral. This 

 flow forms a plateau (resting partly on the gneiss, partly on the base- 

 ment beds of the Bhima series, here consisting of grits and conglome- 

 ratic sandstones), from which rises the conical hill. The two upper flows 

 consist of hard basaltic trap, the division between them being formed by 

 a band of extra hard and compact basalt, the horizontality of which is 

 fairly seen from a distance. Amygdaloids of chalcedony or quartz of 

 small size are rather numerous in these hard beds, and leave many small 

 pittings on the surfaces of the weathered blocks. This Nagurbetta forms 

 the culminating point of a large outlier of trap. 



Another interesting section occurs on the north side of this outlier, 



immediately south of the village of Hire Murala 

 Murala section. 



(Mooral Heereh), about three miles west-by-north 



of the Nagurbetta. The following succession of beds is here seen in the 

 sides of a deep rain gully : — 



1. Earthy trap (nodular trap), much weathered into spheroids, 



green-grey to yellow brown in color (basement bed at 

 Nagurbetta). 



2. Bluish-grey clayey trap, 10 inches to a foot thick. 



8. Clayey trap with waxy lustre, apple-green and brown 

 mottled I'-r thick. 

 The last bed rests on an unconsolidated pebbly grit, which is in parts 

 marly. A thickness of 7 feet of this pebbly grit is here seen exposed ; 

 z ( 185 ) 



