286 Notes on the South Mahratta Country, fyc. [No. 160. 



structure, on the whole less assimilate those of jasper than in Sondur 

 and other places. The generality of its most jaspideous and lami- 

 nar beds may be classed in McCulloch's second division of silicious 

 chert, viz. 



" F. Laminar, with alternate colours, and forming varieties of the 

 striped jasper of mineralogists. The colours are commonly shades of 

 red, brown, yellow and purplish black, and these kinds appear to be 

 derived from the coloured shales. 



" G. Containing imbedded crystals of quartz, and of a porphyritic 

 aspect." 



The physical aspect of the country to the W. and S. W. of Darwar 

 is hilly. The elevations are generally, like those of the clay slate of 

 the Cambrian group, round-backed, smooth, of no great altitude, and 

 separated by well cultivated vallies, or narrow ravines. They are 

 partially covered with a low shrubby vegetation principally of Mimosa, 

 Cacti, and the Cassia auriculata. To the East stretches the great plateau 

 of the S. Mahratta country and Ceded Districts, covered for the 

 most part with a thick layer of regur, and continuing, with but few 

 hilly interruptions, across the peninsula to the Eastern Ghauts. The 

 soil in the immediate vicinity of Darwar is reddish and clayey, evident- 

 ly the alluvium of the schistose hills, and disintegration of rocks in 

 situ. 



The rocks composing the hills are schists passing into slates and 

 shales, (agreeably to Lyell's distinctions of these terms.) The general 

 structure is perhaps more schistose and shaly than slaty. The struc- 

 ture varies from massive, and obscurely slaty, to finely laminar ; and from 

 compact and flinty, to soft and sectile. The laminae are nearly verti- 

 cal, and generally run parallel with the prevailing line of elevation, viz. 

 N. W. and S. E. The stratification, if not identical with the lamina- 

 tion, is obscure. It is well known, however, that the lines of fissility 

 in slates are not necessarily those of stratification, the former being often 

 caused by the arrangement of mica, chlorite or talc ; petrographically 

 speaking, the rock passes from a green chloritic schist into all shades 

 of white, yellow, red and brown, sometimes singularly arranged in 

 stripes, in contorted and waving bands ; red and white being the pre- 

 valent tints. Felspar, in a clayey slate of disintegration, is the preva- 

 lent mineral blended with quartz, and tinged with iron. The white 



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