30 KING : COASTAL REGION OP THE GODAVARI DISTRICT. 



ginous sandstones and conglomerates which it would be very difficult to 

 distinguish from each other, though it did appear to me that below 

 Tripati they are lying on an undulating surface of these — not neces- 

 sarily a denuded one — which is overlapped by different beds of the lower 

 part of the group, but still to such an extent that this could not be called 

 a case of local false bedding. 



The group is, however, remarkable in its lithological constitution, and 



is thus eminently separable from the underlying 

 Very different rocks. . .. 



sandstone series, irrespective or its much smaller 



extent ; and this character or condition offers ground for the conclusion 

 that a decided interval of time must have intervened between its depo- 

 sition and the conclusion of the period of sandstone formation. The 

 material deposited and the remains of animal life are altogether different 

 to those of the lower group, though there are still two of the vegetable 

 forms common to both. 



The interval may represent a period of gradual depression, during 

 Indication of separa- which the area became too distant from the 

 tion of groups. receding shore line to be within the range of 



coarse arenaceous deposition such as had been deposited in the Rajmahal 

 period. Under these new conditions, the bottom was then more likely to 

 be covered by the finer sediment only, containing shell remains with a 

 pelagic facies generally making up the Ragavapuram strata, the few 

 plant remains having been floated out to sea. 



Tripati sandstones. — The very low scarped edge crowning the south- 

 western slopes of the Tripati range is made up of these beds, and their 

 outcrop is continued, but with a less constant lithologic facies, to the 

 right and left, dropping down to the hollows of the streams crossing 

 the range, and rising up again in less elevated prominences until it 

 finally shores up against the Gutalla gneiss ridges on the right bank of 

 the Godavari, or sinks down under the narrow alluvial strip of the 

 Tammiler to the north-north-west of Ellore. 



There are many places where this group of sandstones is well and 

 conspicuously developed, but a good and notable headland of them 

 ( 224 ) 



