10 KING : COASTAL REGION OF THE GODAVARI DISTRICT. 



near Akid ; but when the Tammiler is in flood, there is then a current out- 

 wards. As the dry weather comes on this outlet is closed and as much 

 water as possible is retained for irrigation, &c, along- the shores. Occa- 

 sionally, as in the year 1875, the Tammiler comes down with great force 

 and floods the country all round Ellore. In that year the banks of the 

 canal, which is here below surface level, had to be cut to allow of the 

 water being carried off partly by it, the river waterway under the 

 aqueduct not being sufficient for the off -flow. 



Such are the more evident physical features of the country, but a 

 further remarkable one, and not so patent to the casual observer, is a 

 certain bevelling off, or truncation, of many of the hills and ridges into 

 pseudo-plateaux from the smaller elevations along the edge of the 

 alluvial plain even up to the loftier masses of the Eastern Ghats at 

 the river gorge ; all which bevelled surfaces appear to have been 

 portions of one great and ancient plain which has since been denuded 

 Traces of an old an( ^ cu ^ nl to, in fact, the remnants of a deeply 

 marine floor. denuded old marine floor. In the Rajahmundry- 



Vizagapatam area, the hills have all very much the same gentle and 

 even sloping surfaces hading up out of the alluvial flats, while the hills 

 and ridges a little further inland have their summits bevelled off in 

 what appears to be the same plane. This is a marked feature of the 

 hills about Kirlumpudi and Bendapudi, and I noted it at the time of my 

 survey as a strange one. Subsequently, in working over the country to 

 the north of Rajahmundry, about Korakonda and Nagumpali, I was 

 again struck by the curious planed-off aspect of most of the hills, their 

 tops all appearing to lie in a plane of gentle south-south-east slope 

 which should meet the flat-topped Bison hill in the Ghats. The same 

 feature is seen, though less vividly, in the Yernagudem and Ellore 

 country, from the low hills near Gutalla to the higher group near 

 Chintalpudi. Again, towards Bezvada, in the numerous hills about 

 Nuzvid, Augerpali, Nuna Stalum, and Bezvada itself, there is the same 

 lie of the hill and ridge tops in a generally south-easterly sloping plane, 

 displayed in a remarkably clear manner. 

 ( 204 ) 



