2 KING : COASTAL REGION OF THE GODAVARI DISTRICT. 



by the Survey, as extending thus far northwards from the Trichinopoly 

 district, through Sriperumbudar (Sripermatur) , the Nellore area, and so 

 up to the Kistna. 



The other formations to be noticed were nearly all known, more or 

 less, long before the examination of the country was taken up by the 

 Survey ; this region having been rendered classic ground by several of 

 the pioneers of Indian geology, more especially through the researches 

 of the late Revd. Mr. Hislop into the relations of the inter-trap- 

 pean fossil beds in the neighbourhood of Rajahmundry. It was, how- 

 ever, reserved for my colleague, Mr. W. T. Blanford, to trace the 

 Gondwana series down the valley of the great river from the Central 

 Provinces in the year 1871; and in 1873 I had the good fortune to 

 discriminate some groups of the upper division of this formation, as also 

 some inf ra-trappean beds, to increase the roll already made out by unoffi- 

 cial observers. 



Literature. — The work of these latter explorers commences as far 

 back as 1814, when the ' Tracts, Historical and Statistical, on India ' of 

 Dr. Benjamin Heyne appeared. These contain many references to this 

 part of the peninsula which are extremely interesting, and they shall 

 be duly noticed in the following pages, as they may happen to bear on 

 the rocks or formations under description. 1 In 1830, H. H. Voysey, 

 Surgeon and Geologist to the Great Trigonometrical Survey, travelled 

 over the western edge of this area, and his reports were subsequently 

 collected and published in the Journal of the Bengal Asiatic Society. 3 

 He refers to the diamond mines at Muleli, near Ellore, which even as far 

 back as that time were not being worked. He also noted that the 

 sandstone tract, now known as of Gondwana age, was traceable all down 

 the Pranhita-Godavari valley into the Ellore country. In 1S35, when the 



1 Tract III, p. 92, et seq.— Account of the diamond mines of India. Tract XII, 

 p. 212 — Account of the method of smelting iron in the Northern Circars. Tract XIII, 

 p. 224 — Account of the iron works at Ramanakapetta. Tract XV, p. 230 — Cursory 

 observations made during a tour from Bezwada to Timmericotta. Tract XVII, p. 247 

 — Observations made on a tour from Samulcotah to Hyderabad. Tract XVIII, p. 280 — A 

 brief account of the Circars on the Coast of Orissa. 



2 Vol. Ill, pp. 298 and 392 (1833). 

 ( 196 ) 



