514 



Notes, chiefly Geological, 



[No. 163. 



Gametic gneiss and leptinitic gneiss occur around the bases of these 

 granite rocks in contorted strata; and further to the S. and W., rise the 

 hornblende and chlorite schists into the ranges 'of Boodihal and the 

 Copper mountain. 



Copper Mountain. This dome-shaped mountain is the highest point 

 of a ridge which runs by Jondoor N. Westerly to the Tumbuddra 

 near Hospett, and about five miles Westerly from Bellary. It is said 

 to be 1500 feet above the plain at its base, which at Bellary is about 

 1600 feet above the sea according to General Cullen's measurements* 

 The great plain at its Eastern base extends Easterly as far as Gooty, 

 Northerly to the North bank of the Kistnah, and Southerly to the My- 

 sore frontier : it is for the most part covered with a rich sheet of regur, 

 resting either on kunker or the debris of the subjacent granitic and 

 hypogene rocks ; and in addition to the bajra, and other dry grains of red 

 soils, smiles with extensive crops of cotton, wheat, and the white juari. 



The inferior ridges at the base of the range are chiefly of gneiss, 

 and a reddish and faint greenish quartz rock. The great mass of the 

 ridge is composed of hornblende schist passing into chlorite and earthy 

 ferruginous schists, capped by a wall-like naked ridge of a dark brown 

 rock composed generally of a greyish chert, and brown iron ore, or 

 jaspideous red and brown clay, in alternate layers, and resting ap- 

 parently on their edges ; in fact, a ribbon jasper on a large scale. The 

 laminae are often highly contorted and waving. The crest is often 

 broken up by transverse fissures or joints ; and, at more than one part 

 of its crest-like course, has suffered manifest disturbance. Its general 

 direction is S. Easterly. 



A columnar mass, about 50 feet high, crowns the ridge, not far from 

 the copper excavations, and serves as a guide-post to their site, which is 

 nearly obliterated by earth and fragments of excavated rock, and can be 

 hardly found without the aid of a Tulari, or of a person who has previous- 

 ly visited them. A crater-like cavity, on the top of a small mound a few 

 yards in diameter and of little depth, was pointed out as one of the exca- 

 vations for copper made by order of Hyder. I examined the sides and 

 bottom of this cavity, but did not discover any vein of the ore in the 

 rocks composing them, though traces of the green carbonate in their 

 seams and incrustations are seen on the refuse thrown out. On the right 



