ALLUVIAL DEPOSITS. 97 



all the rivers. Unfortunately no organic remains were found in any of 

 these lower clays. 



The alluvium of the Man-eru (Mun Air) is by far the most sandy 

 Sandy alluvium of the °^ a ^ ^he smaller rivers, a fact quite in keeping 

 an " eru * with the general character of the area drained 



by it, which show less regur than do the basins of the other rivers. 

 Much of the red sand covering the flats near the junction of the Man-eru 

 and its principal branch, the Vupput-eru, is washed-up lateritic sand, and 

 so red in colour as to make it very difficult in many places to distinguish 

 the boundary between it and the true lateritic sands. At Gundlapalem, 

 as at various other places along the lower reaches of the river, the banks 

 are high, and cut into small cliffs showing red-brown loamy sands 20 to 

 30 feet in thickness. 



In the upper part of its valley the Man-eru cuts through two large flats 



of a very kankarry quartzite shingle, quite unlike 

 Shingle flats. . . 



the reddish loamy alluvium the river is now forming 



on a small scale in a few spots above local barriers of gneiss. These flats 



are mentioned here as the shingles might, from their situation, very easily 



be taken for old river alluvia, but the probability is they are really of 



lateritic age, and implements were found on the surface of the upper flat. 



These flats, which have already been referred to (page 91), are situated 



to the north and east of Pamur, at Chintalapalem, near Kothapalle and 



Mupad respectively. 



The alluvium at the junction of the valleys of the Pal-era and Musi- 



eru is largely sandy, but higher up the valleys of both rivers cotton soil 



predominates markedly. 



CHAPTER VIII— SOILS AND SUB-AERIAL DEPOSITS. 

 Three classes of soils are met with in the Nellore-Kistna country — the 

 black, red, and white ; but of these only the two first are of any import- 

 Distribution of red and ance. The black soil, cotton soil, or regur, covers the 

 black soils. largest surface, and predominates in the northern 



g ( 97 ) 



