16 FOOTE : GEOLOGY 01' MADURA AND TINNEVELLY DISTRICTS. 



The southern and higher end of the ridge shows, especially as seen from 

 the south and south-east, a very remarkable resemblance to the upraised 

 head of a great elephant, and this doubtless suggested the legend by 

 which the crafty priests of the great temple at Madura explain the 

 origin of this remarkable hill. According to this legend some deity 

 hostile to the goddess Minakshi, the foundress and patroness of the 

 great temple, sent an enormous demon elephant to destroy both the town 

 and temple, but the powerful goddess prevented the intended evil by 

 petrifying the monster. Similar legends have been invented with re- 



Naganialai, Passu, g^rd to the Nagamalai (Serpent hill) and Passu- 

 ™"^^'' malai (cow hill) west and south of Madura (see 



page 13). In the former ease the theriomorphic character of the hill 

 would readily suggest the legend, but in the latter the form of the hill, 

 from no point of view, suggests a resemblance to any animal, and the 

 origin of the myth is by no means obvious. 



The stratigraphy of the Anai Malai is not at all easy to make out, the 

 bedding being indistinct and also very much contorted. The quartzo- 

 felspathic-micaceous rock is of grey colour banded with pink laminae. 

 In part it assumes a "blotchy'^ or coarsely porphyritic structure, and 

 at the northern end of the ridge the beds are to be seen contorted into an 

 imperfect but acute angled anticlinal. A similar sharp contortion of 

 the beds forming the Perumal Malai or Narasingampatti hill referred to 

 above (page 15) has been followed by the intrusion of a short but 

 thick granite vein which forms the crest of the highest part of the ridge. 

 6. The vpper granular quartz rock group. — The relations of the 



Relations of the Melur "Pper granite gueiss group to the great beds of 

 and Aliagiri groups. granular quartz rock forming the bold scarp 



of the Allagiri hill could not be made out quite satisfactorily by the 

 examination of the country close to Allagiri temple. The granite 

 gneiss there appears to dip under the granular quartz rock, and if 

 such is really the case and the succession be not disturbed by anj-^ 

 inversion, then the Allagiri granular quartz rock must be grouped as a 

 third or upper series of its kind as I have done. It is possible, however, 

 that the Allagiri beds are really inverted beds, but on this point tiie evi- 

 ( 16 ) 



