996 Notes, chiefly Geological, across the Peninsula QNo. 156. 



while decisive against the decomposition in situ theory, would lead 

 us to the inference that the laterite owed its origin to the detritus of 

 other rocks than the overlying trap. 



Laterite by many geologists in Europe is supposed only to fringe 

 our coasts, and exist as a thin cap on the ghaut summits ; every day 

 however is adding to our knowledge of its extent in the interior of the 

 peninsula, and it is evident not only that it must have covered it formerly 

 to a much greater extent than at present ; but that it has since been 

 much broken up by the subsequent denudation of which on the small 

 scale, Beder affords a specimen (vide section.) The effects of this 

 denudation however, are visible on the grand scale in the interior of S. 

 India, where the ]tops of mountains of granite, hypogene rocks, and 

 sandstone many miles asunder are seen capped with laterite in almost 

 horizontal beds, and little or no laterite in the intervening plains and 

 valleys. As in Mac Culloch's description of the great denudation of the 

 red sandstone on the N. W. coast of Ross- shire. It is impossible to com- 

 pare these scattered and detached portions without imagining that the 

 whole intervening country has once been covered with a great body of 

 laterite, enormous masses of which have been removed by denuda- 

 tion. The same remarks might be applied with some modification 

 to the subjacent sandstone. Some fragments of this great denudation 

 may be recognized in the laterite gravel and clay which overspreads the 

 surface of many parts of the country, and which when reconsolidated it is 

 often difficult to distinguish from the true laterite, from which it has 

 been derived and for which it has often been mistaken. 



From Beder to Calliany, Trap and Laterite. 



It is now time to resume our journey towards the old Jaiu city of 

 Calliany, more lately the Metropolis of the* Kings, a provincial city 

 under Aurungzebe and now under the Nizam. 



From the foot of the cliffs of Beder, a plain, based on trap amygda- 

 loid abounding with calcedonies, zeolites, and calc spar, broken only 

 by a few slight undulations, extends to Calliany near which the sur- 

 face undergoes a gentle but considerable ascent, a few belts of the 

 reconsolidated laterite gravel just described cross the road resting on 

 the trap, and are evidently derived from some high laterite cliffs to the 

 W. and N. of the city to which I traced the debris. On one of these 



* MSS. illegible. 



