1845.] across the Peninsula of Southern India. 509 



Tarputri is still a considerable place : it is the capital of a taluk, with 

 a population of about 4256 Hindus, (chiefly kunbis) and 2155 Mussul- 

 mans. The language is Telugu. 



From Tallapodatoor to Tarputri, (about ten miles). The road lies 

 over an extensive plain watered on the north by the Pennaur, cover- 

 ed with regur and a soil of a dark coffee red, except where lime- 

 stone prevails, when it assumes a cineritious colour. The substratum 

 is generally a bed of kunker. Trap dykes are frequently crossed. Tarputri 

 is situated on the right bank of the Pennaur. The only hill in the 

 vicinity is of greenstone, associated with a greenstone slate curiously 

 mottled by dark oval spots. On the summit of this hill, I found kunker 

 imbedding angular bits of the rock. Beyond Tarputri, near Vaimpully, 

 close to a dyke of basaltic greenstone, masses of calcareous spar with 

 quartz are seen jutting from the surface, many of them incrusted with 

 drusy crystals of quartz. The spar, in some instances, has been pene- 

 trated by the basalt, and coloured of a dull green. Fragments of jasper, 

 flint, chert, brown, green and white, are strewed on the surface. Mounds 

 of kunker are also frequent. Trap dykes continue from Vaimpully 

 to Ryelcherroo. 



Ryelcherroo. Near this place limestone, sandstone, and sandstone 

 conglomerate prevail, associated with jasper and chert. Tippoo, it is 

 said, dug a considerable quantity of the latter for musket flints. The 

 hill in which the excavations lie, is about 1^ mile S. W. from the small 

 fort. Its base consists of a greyish laminar limestone, with a rugged 

 external appearance, and veined with calcareous spar and quartz. As- 

 cending the hill, the limestone becomes less crystalline, and changes 

 its colour to shades of a greenish blue and pale flesh colour, until the 

 sandstone conglomerate, by which the hill is capped, is reached. A little 

 below the summit amid the blocks of pudding stone and sandstone, lie 

 Tippoo's excavations for flints ; they are dug out in externally ochreous 

 and rusty coloured, irregularly shaped, blackish, grey and white masses. 

 They are a variety of chert far less tough than the English flint of the 

 chalk formation, splitting easily on a smart blow. The summit of the 

 hill is strewed with pieces of red jasper, and pebbles of a flinty quartz 

 and calcareous spar. 



A native of the village turns neat cups and vases from a pale yel- 

 lowish and white magnesian limestone, which is procured at a hill in 



