2 KING : NELLORE PORTION OF THE CARNATIC. 



reported on, such as the Madras and Kistna regions, 1 which tie on to the 

 northern and southern edges of the present area. 



The examination of this ground was originally taken up by the late 

 Mr. Charles M. Oldham and myself in 1861 while following out the 

 transition rocks of the Cuddapah district ; but the publication of the 

 o-eology of more important areas, and the death of our colleague, who 

 would most likely have written this memoir, have delayed the description 

 of this country until now. Dr. Oldham deferred any memoir until there 

 mio-ht be an opportunity of revisiting that portion of the district in 

 which the complicated and obscure relations of the Cuddapah rocks and 

 the gneiss are displayed, but as there has been no chance of this with 

 the reduced number of the survey party in this presidency, and this 

 condition being likely to continue, I have been requested to prepare this 

 treatise from the observations and notes then recorded. 



The country so introduced to the reader is a compact more or less 



rectangular strip of the Carnatic, lying between 

 Areaofcountrydefined. ^ ^ ^^^j^^^^^,^ 



tude, with the Bay of Bengal on its eastern side and that portion of the 

 Eastern Ghats called the Veligondas 3 as its western edge : it includes 

 rather more than the southern half of the Nellore district and portions 

 of the northern edges of those of Madras and North Arcot. 



There is only one large town of importance, namely, the zillah station 

 of Nellore, but two other smaller and purely native towns, residences of 

 the Chiefs or great zemindars Venkatagiri and Kalahasti (Calastry), 

 mark respectively the western and south-western parts of the field. It 

 is traversed by two important rivers, the Penner and Swarnamukhi, the 



Towns and comnrnnica- P ro P er basins of wnicn lie > however, to the west- 

 tions - ward of the Eastern Ghats. Communication is 



effected by the great northern trunk road, and this is connected at 

 Nellore and Gudiir with the western districts of Cuddapah and North 

 Arcot by two less important roads crossing the Eastern Ghats at the 



1 Mem. Geol. Surv. of India, Vols. X and XVI, pt. 1. 



2 Also Vellacondas, Yellacondas, and Yellicondas. 



( no ) 



