250 FOOTE : SOUTH MAHRATTA COUNTRY. 



Talus accumulations of rock debris are to be met with everywhere 

 and are often very extensive, especially at the foot 

 of quartzite slopes and scarps, where they render 

 the ground very rough and impassable. Occasionally they are so thick 

 as to obscure geological boundary lines to a very great extent, and in two 

 cases it was found needful to map the talus-covered areas distinctively. 

 These cases occurred, one to the north-east of the Nelseri traveller's 

 bungalow on the Belgaum-Kaladgi road, the other at the base of the 

 great quartzite headland* forming the easternmost extremity o£ the 

 Kaladgi quartzites lying south of the Malprabha river in the state of 

 Kamdurg. In both cases the accumulation is considerable in thickness, 

 and forms a conspicuous feature of the locality. 



II. — Soils. 



Two great classes of soils are found covering the South Mahratta 

 country and south-western Deccan, the red and 

 ^ Jwo classes, black and the black ; and besides them, a few exceptional 

 forms not to be referred to either in point of 

 color. The red soils are primary soils resulting directly from the de- 

 composition of ferruginous rocks of all kinds; the black soils, on the 

 contrary, are secondary soils, — that is, they are the results of primary 

 decomposition altered by accession of organic matter from the surface. 

 Both classes of soils are met with on all the different rocks. The old 

 idea, that regur or cotton soil is the result of the weathering of trap rocks 

 only, meets no support in the country here treated of, for black-soil 

 occurs quite as largely and typically on the gneissie and other azoic rocks 

 here occurring as it does on the trap in the southern parts of the great 

 trap area. 



* Locally known as the Suriband (Sooreebund) Hill from the village of that name. 

 It was at this village that Mr. Manson, the Assistant Political Agent for the South 

 Mahratta coimtry, was attacked and murdered by the rebel Rajah of Nargund 

 in 1858. 



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