272 Notes on the South Mahratta Country, fyc. QNo. 160. 



often of a highly ferruginous and jaspideous character, and imbedding 

 fragments of chert, quartz, and shales from the limestone. 



As these hills are ascended, the sandstone gradually loses its con- 

 glomerate character, passing into almost all the varieties it is suscep- 

 tible of, from yellow and reddish rock containing much argillaceous 

 matter, to a loose gritty sandstone with red and yellow bands, which 

 passes into a compact white sandstone, approaching quartz rock, con- 

 taining specks of oxide of iron, or decayed felspar, in minute cavities. 



On the summit of the Pass was a fine whitish sandstone with reddish 

 streaks, composed of grains of quartz held together by whitish decom- 

 posed felspar. 



On many of the slabs the ripple mark is distinct, running nearly N. 

 and S., which shows that the current must have had an easterly or 

 westerly course in this locality. At the western base of the Pass the 

 coloured argillaceous shales, into which the limestone usually passes 

 near the line of junction with the superimposed limestone, have been 

 invaded and cut by a dyke of basaltic greenstone, and converted into 

 reddish, greenish, and brown coloured jasper and bluish white chert 

 in alternating layers ; each line of which presents the original lines of 

 deposition. Two other dykes, or ramifications, are crossed in the plain 

 or valley extending from the base of the first Pass to another range 

 probably a spur or outlier of the ridge just crossed, and though 

 curvilinear, having a general direction nearly parallel with it. Green 

 argillaceous schists, altered by the basaltic dykes, and in almost 

 vertical laminae, occupy the bottom of the intervening valley. The 

 spur or outlying range is of a compact sandstone capping the schists 

 and dipping at an angle of about 28° towards the S. W. Near the 

 summit of the range it contains a bed of very fine white and red clay 

 which is extensively excavated by the natives, who use the former as a 

 whitewash and to paint the mark of caste on their foreheads. 



The Gutpurba finds its way easterly through a break just below 

 this rock, and rushes through the ridge just passed, by a still narrower 

 and more rugged gorge. 



Leaving the excavations, the traveller descends the sandstone spur 

 into the extensive and fertile plain of Bagulcotta, based on limestone 

 and its associated coloured shales and schists ; bounded on the east 

 by the Sitadonga or Gujunderghur range; and, as far as the eye can 



