1845.] Notes on the South Mahratta Country, fyc. 283 



deposited a scanty sediment of fine red silt, about 1 -50th part of its bulk. 

 The temperature of the water afoot below the surface was 74°, of air in 

 shade 72°, of a well thirty feet deep 74° 5'. The temperature of rain 

 water 73°. (The atmosphere had then been cooled to 70° and 74° by 

 eighteen days of successive rain, with a pretty steady westerly wind). 

 The banks of the river are of silt and sand, the left or Western bank 

 is steep and high. 



From the Malpurba to Darwar. From the banks of the Malpurba 

 to Darwar, a direct distance of twenty-three miles, the country is 

 hilly and picturesque, particularly around the Marhatta forts and towns 

 of Kittoor and Taigoor, which command a lovely landscape of hill and 

 dale. The valleys are generally well watered, cultivated with dry 

 and wet grain, and studded, parklike, with clumps of the Mango and 

 Tamarind, while the sloping sides of the hills, verdant with the rain, 

 afford a plentiful pasture to flocks of sheep and herds of cattle. The 

 landscape around Darwar partakes of the same character, and was 

 frequently brought to recollection during subsequent wanderings in 

 Karamania, the Troad, and other parts of Asia Minor. 



The soil covering the surface of this pleasing tract of country, is 

 usually reddish, and the result of the decay and washing of the neigh- 

 bouring rocks. A few belts of cotton soil appear here and there. The 

 staple products of these soils are rice, yellow and white Juari, Bajra, 

 Raggi, Teimgoni, Till, Tobacco, Saffron, and Maize ; Mimosa, Euphor- 

 bia, Cacti, Cassias, and Acacias constitute the majority of the wild 

 vegetation. 



The schists forming the hills in the vicinity of Kittoor resemble, 

 petrologically, the jaspideous schists of Bellary and Sondur (described 

 in Madras Journal for July 1838, pp. 147-49,) and consist commonly 

 of chert and brown iron ore, or a ferruginous jaspideous clay in alter- 

 nate layers ; sometimes in straight lines, sometimes in flexures con- 

 torted, or bent at acute angles, and resembling those of ribbon jasper. 

 This rock, like that of Sondur, is sometimes magnetic with polarity. 

 It contains nests and cavities lined with blistery and stalactitic hema- 

 tite, quartz crystals, and veins of smoky quartz. In some places, 

 like the Sondur rock, it puts on the appearance of a breccia consist- 

 ing of a dark chocolate, or liver- brown paste, highly indurated, giving 

 fire with steel, imbedding angular fragments of the striped ribbon jas- 



