DECCAN TRAP IRON-CLAY. 213 



but they are less well defined than those just mentioned, and very much 

 more obscured by jungle. To have visited them all would have 

 required several months^ more time than could be given to the ghat 

 region. 



Much iron-clay that is not referable to any of the sets of beds 



named^ and mostly lying at yet lower levels^ occurs 



Sub-aerial agglomerates. ,, j .1 , iv/r i, f- 4.1,- 



scattered over the country. Much oi this more 



recent rock is unquestionably a sub-aerial agglomeration of lumps of 



older iron-clay beds broken down by weathering and mixed up with 



other ferruginous and clayey materials of pluvial collection and cemented 



in part or wholly by further deposition of ferruginous matter. At 



times rocks of this origin are difficult > to distinguish from the older 



form, but generally they show their true nature by their lying confusedly 



and irregularly on the uneven surface. 



A deposit of iron-clay of which the origin is not quite clear and the 



position relative to the beds before described is 

 Iron-clay at Belgatma. 



obscure, is that met with at Belgaum. The 



iron-clay there occupies a deep bay or hollow on the east side of the 



basaltic rise, on which the new European barracks have been built. The 



basaltic high ground here forms an angle, the apex of which lies north-west 



of the town, and in that angle the iron-clay is most largely exposed in 



two sections, one in the new well sunk in the soldiers' garden, the 



other in a deep well-like pit whence road metal is extracted. In the 



former section, the iron-clay had not been pierced at a depth of from 



35 to 40 feet, and in the latter the thickness exposed exceeded (in 1872) 



a depth of 50 feet vertical, and yet the underlying trap rock was not 



exposed. In the well section the rock is not so well seen from the 



smaller size of the opening, but in the quarry the un weathered surface 



of the walls displays the rock to great advantage. The rock is very 



different in character from that seen in the sections of the "summit bed'' 



or "watershed'' series, traversed by vesicular and vermicular cavities. 



( 213 ) 



