518 Notes, chiefly Geological, [No. 163. 



The whole of the extensive site occupied by the ruins of Bijanugger 

 on the South bank of the Tumbuddra, and of its suburb Annagundi 

 on the Northern bank, is occupied by great bare piles and bosses of 

 granite and granitoidal gneiss separated by rocky defiles and narrow 

 rugged vallies encumbered by precipitated masses of rock. Some of 

 the larger flat bottomed vallies are irrigated by aqueducts from the 

 river, and appear like so many verdant Oases in this Arabia Petraea of 

 Southern India. Indeed some parts of the wilderness of Sinai reminded 

 me, but on a far grander scale, of this huddled assemblage of bare 

 granite rocks on the banks of the Tumbuddra. The formation is the 

 same, the scantiness of vegetation, the arid aspect of the bare rocks, 

 and the green spots marking the presence of springs, few and far be- 

 tween in the depths of the vallies, are features common to both loca- 

 lities. 



The peaks, tors, and logging stones of Bijanugger and Annagund 

 indent the horizon in picturesque confusion, and are scarcely to 

 be distinguished from the more artificial ruins of the ancient Hindu 

 metropolis of the Deccan, which are usually constructed with blocks 

 quarried from their sides, and vie in grotesqueness of outline and mas- 

 siveness of character with the alternate airiness and solidity exhibited 

 by nature in the nicely poised logging stones and columnar piles, and 

 in the walls of prodigious cuboidal blocks of granite which often crest 

 and top her massive domes and ridges in natural Cyclopean masory. 



The granite clusters of Bijanugger are continued on the opposite or 

 Northern bank of the river to Annagundi and Gungawutti in the 

 Nizam's territories. On the East they are bounded by the great regur 

 plains of the Ceded Districts, and on the West by those of the S. 

 Mahratta country. The country to the S. has already been described. 



At first sight these elevations appear to have sprung up confusedly 

 without order or arrangement ; but I found, after ascending the loftiest 

 summits, and after a careful examination of the direction of the laminae 

 in the gneiss, interstratified beds, veins, and fissures, on both sides of the 

 river, that the great general line of dislocation nearly follows that 

 hitherto observed, viz. N. N. W. and S. S. E. and that the rock opening 

 through which the Tumbuddra flows is a cross valley. 



A few caves, both natural and artificial, occur in the granite. The 

 natural caverns are usually fissures roofed by precipitated blocks, or the 



