1845.] Notes on the South Mahratta Country, $c. 293 



environ the bed of some dried-up inland sea, and this appearance is 

 heightened by the bold, flat-topped headlands and receding bays pre- 

 sented by the sandstone ranges in their curvilinear outline. This con- 

 tinuity of these long horizontal ranges, which usually preserve an uni- 

 formity of height, rarely exceeding 300 feet, has however been 

 greatly violated by, apparently, denudatory aqueous causes ; and it is not 

 uucommon to see outlying masses and short ranges of sandstone at 

 considerable distances from the principal deposit, for instance the de- 

 tached rocks of Noulgoond, Pedda and Chick Nurgoond, (where it oc- 

 curs in scarped masses cropping granite and the hypogene schists,) and 

 the detached central range between Kulladghi and Gokauk. 



The Sitadonga hills form the eastern fringe to the district, and those 

 of Gokauk the western, extending southerly from its northern limits 

 on both sides of the limestone plain of Kulladghi and Bagulcotta to 

 about the latitude of the Malpurba river. The subjacent limestone 

 thins out, or is entirely wanting at the edges, where the sandstone is 

 often seen resting immediately on the granite and hypogene schists. 

 The eastern ridge of sandstone turns westerly near Gujunder 

 Ghur. 



Extent of the Laterite. Laterite is seen capping some of the sand- 

 stone hills of the Sitadonga range, and a narrow belt along its eastern 

 flank. It also occurs in the form of low hills and patches overlying 

 the limestone in the plains of Bagulcotta and Kulladghi. 



In the Southern parts of the district it occurs in a few patches 

 covering the hypogene schists of the Kupputgode range, and on the 

 summits of the Ghaut ranges West of Belgaum and Darwar. 



Extent of Kunker. Kunker is pretty generally distributed ; there 

 are beds near Badami and Hoobly, of some extent, covered by alluvium. 



Extent of the Regur. This remarkable soil, or deposit, for so I con- 

 sider it, resembles much the Tchornoi Zem covering the steppes of 

 Russia; it prevails almost exclusively in the plains East of Dar- 

 war, and those of Kulladghi and Bagulcotta, except where interrupted 

 by chains of hills, and covered by the alluvium washed from their sides, 

 in beds from a few inches to thirty or forty feet deep. 



Extent of Plutonic and Trappean Rocks. Plutonic rocks are rarely 

 seen developed in any extent on the surface of the South Mahratta 

 country, but their effects are sufficiently apparent in the altered state 

 of many of the lower rocks. 



