1842.] Bijapore to Bellary via Kannighirri. 949 



nullah. No section occurred, shewing its contact with the sandstone ; 

 the surface of the country being covered with a thick stratum of soil, 

 but from the easterly dip of both rocks, it is evident that the limestone 

 is the uppermost. It continues the surface rock to the most easterly 

 point of my observation ; viz. Talicota. In a deep well at Munjghi, 

 a coss west from Talicota, the bed of the Doni river and the plain 

 in front of the Talicota fort gate, it occurs in stratified masses, with 

 a very slight dip, varying according to the rise of the plain. In the 

 well, the dip was only 2-p E. 5 S. Dividing the limestone from the sur- 

 face to the bottom of the well was a fissure, a foot wide, direction 

 S. 5 W., filled with a buff- coloured earthy kanker and angular frag- 

 ments of the limestone rock. The latter in mineral character resembles 

 the Cuddapah limestone, but is generally lighter in colour, varying from 

 dark blue to pale buff or cream, and has few traces of pyrites. 



The minerals associated with it, are hematite in small nodules, often 

 occurring disseminated like strings of beads through its structure, which 

 falling out, leave regular lines of small holes that resemble the perfora- 

 tions of boring insects, and the tubular sinuosities in laterite. Angular 

 fragments of a buff- coloured jasper are strewed among those of the 

 limestone, and from their variolated exterior, appear to have been in 

 contact with the basalt, possibly limestone passing into jasper. I have 

 often noted the Cuddapah limestone passing into chert, from contact 

 with basaltic dykes. The softer and finer varieties of the cream- 

 coloured limestone found in the vicinity of Talicota, are well adapted 

 for lithographic purposes. Some of the specimens which I brought 

 hence, were sent down to the lithographic establishment at St. Thomas's 

 Mount, and found to answer. There is also a fine laminar limestone 

 found in the bed of the river, with beautiful dendritic appearances 

 between the plates.* The plain of Talicota is averred by Ferishta to 

 have been the theatre of the overthrow of the Hindu empire of Bijanug- 

 ger in a. d. 1564 ; where Ram Raj, its sovereign, was totally defeated 



* A specimen of this dendritic limestone was examined for me, by Dr. Wight, 

 who kindly afford me the following note : " The arborescent appearance in the 

 slate I think an organic remain. At least I find, when under a high magnifying 

 power, that the black lines can, with the point of a needle, be picked off without 

 touching the stone, as if the carbonaceous matter of the plant was still there. 

 I feel uncertain, however, whether to call the original a moss or a/ncus, but think 

 the latter." 



