272 R. B. Foote — Notes on some recent NeoUtliic and [No. 3, 



settlements. Doubtless, other considerations may have influenced them, 

 but they are not so obvious. The four which seem to have miostly in- 

 fluenced them were : — 1. The more perfect isolation of the granite- 

 gneiss hills, which mostly rise singly out of the plains, or, if in clusters, 

 are yet individually detached and therefore more suitable for defence 

 than posts on continuous ridges, such as are generally formed by the 

 schistose rocks. Some of the granite-gneiss hills are nearly perfectly 

 castellated by the disposition of the rock masses. 2. Rock shelters of 

 great efficiency and comfortable terraces are to be found in numbers 

 on many of the granitoid hills, but hardly ever on the schistose hills. 

 3. The collection of rain water and its storage would, from the nature 

 of the ground, be much easier on the average granitoid rock than on the 

 average schistose hill. 4. The schistose hills are, in very many cases, 

 generally, in fact, surrounded by a heavy and broad talus most detri- 

 mental to easy agricultural work. The granitoid hills, on the contrary, 

 form, as a rule, no great talus, but rise up straight out of the great cot- 

 ton-soil plains, so that the Neolithic field labourers could have been 

 quite close to places of refuge in case of attack from other tribes, and 

 yet have been able to carry on their agricultural work. 



I only know one hond fide settlement situated on the schistose 

 rocks, and this is in the open plain far away from any hill. This is near 

 Sanawaspuram 16 miles N. by E. of Bellary. 



Yet another reason in favour of the granitoid hills is that, from the 

 many bare sheets and scarps of rock which they show, they do not bear 

 continuous slopes of long grass capable of being burnt over, as are the 

 uninterrupted slopes of the schist hills. The absence of these great 

 grass spreads was a great element of safety for the thatched huts on 

 the hills. 



I referred above to the remarkable mound of slaggy cinders occur- 

 ring on the Budi Kanama pass, 16 miles west of Bellary, which mound 

 had been described by various writers 40 or 50 years ago, one of them 

 supposing it to be a volcanic ash cone ! Captain Newbold, the most 

 eminent amateur geologist and archaeologist that South India has 

 known, was another of these writers, and he favoured one of the native 

 theories accounting for the origin of the mound, namely, that it was the 

 result of a great funeral pyre on which all the dead killed in some great 

 local battle had been cremated. Another native legend ascribes this 

 mound to the death of Edimbassurah, a great Rakshas, or giant, 

 killed by Bhimasainah, one of the Panch Pandus. Captain Newbold 

 rather opposed another hypothesis that the mound might be due to the 

 celebration of some great holocaust of animals offered on the occasion of 

 some great religious celebration. The proper way to test the reaj 



