64 FOOTE : GEOLOGY OF MADURA A^^D TINNEVELLY DISTRICTS. 



trenclies of limeburners in search of the shells which are largely used 

 for lime making.^ The bed laid open by the diggings is an impure 

 shell marl abounding in well preserved shells of Cytherea and Potamides. 



The surrounding country for miles consists, except where the small 

 lakes already referred to occupy small hollows, of thick red sands which 

 may in great part be considered as unheaped up teri sands. Unfortunate- 

 ly these sands so completely mask the face of the country that it is quite 

 impossible to correlate in any satisfactory way the marine or estuarine 

 beds exposed in only the far distant outcrops and exposures now under 

 description. 



A couple of miles to the south-south-east at Elanjune, a small fishing 

 hamlet on the coast, which was used by the 

 missionaries of the S. P. G. and C, M. Societies 

 as a sea-bathing sanatarium in the days before railways had reached 

 Tinnevelly, is an outcrop of gritty sandstone underlying the coast 

 dunes and extending eastward into the sea in the shape of a small 

 spit (not shown on the map) which appears to join the reef running 

 with a few short breaks parallel with the coast all the way to IMana- 

 padu headland. No fossils were seen in the sandstone exposed at foot 

 of the cliff. The reef has the effect of keeping off" sharks to a great 

 extent, so that sea-bathing was practised here by Europeans for many 

 years without any accidents occurring. This is also one of the few 

 places on the Indian coast resorted to by dugongs; they have often 

 been seen by the visitors, but the animals are exceedingly shy and wary 

 and will not allow any one to approach them. 



The next exposure of the marine beds, taking them as they follow 



Chrlstiaiiagaraiii sec- ^^ ^ north-easterly direction, occurs at Christiana- 



**°"^* garam about 4 miles north-west-by-north of 



Manappadu headland. Here a well sunk a few dozen yards east of the 



S. P. G. Mission house cuts a white shelly limestone several feet thick 



' Owing to the great faultincss of both the Atlas sheet and the Revenue Surrey Maps 

 in the matter of names, I found it impossible to identify any of the hamlets and villages 

 on the northern side of the lake. 



( 64 ) 



