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



stone. From the latter occasionally resting on the former in less dis- 

 turbed strata it may be inferred, that the limestone suffered some de- 

 gree of dislocation before the sandstone was deposited. There is little 

 doubt from the unaltered and highly inclined stratification of some of 

 the beds resting on the granite, that it must have been protruded by 

 this second upheaval in a solid form. Other highly inclined beds are 

 altered, which indicates a heated but solid state of the intruding rocks. 



The third movement or series of movements by which perhaps a great 

 part of S. India was slowly and gently lifted up to its present elevation, 

 raising beds of laterite in a horizontal position to the height of 7,000 

 feet and upwards, appears to have taken place during the tertiary 

 period. This great soulvement is perhaps rather attributable to vol- 

 canic than plutonic action, since the granites of both eras appear to 

 have been raised in a solid form, and no granite of India has yet been 

 observed altering or intruding into tertiary rock. Possibly its pheno- 

 mena were connected with those attending and following the grandest 

 eruption of trap in the whole world, the overlying trap of Western and 

 Central India, which evidently took place in the tertiary period. 



During these epochs, it is almost needless to say, that the surface 

 must have undergone various oscillations at different periods, during 

 which the aqueous strata were deposited, consolidated, and partially 

 denuded, uplifted and submerged. 



Age of Basaltic greenstone. Like the granite the basaltic greenstone 

 is evidently of two eruptive epochs, as we see dykes of it crossed by 

 more recent dykes. 



The greenstone of the first epoch is posterior to the older granite and 

 hypogene rocks which it penetrates, and with which it has been up- 

 lifted in a solid form ; partaking of all their dislocations and abrupt 

 truncations. This older greenstone stops short of the sandstone ; 

 the conglomerates of the latter imbed pebbles of the greenstone. 



The newer basaltic greenstone penetrates, and alters the lime- 

 stone and sandstone, but stops short of the laterite. Both rocks 

 are distinguished mineralogically from the tertiary or overlying traps 

 by their rarely assuming an amygdaloidal character, and their freedom 

 from agates, opals, calcedonies, zeolites, green earth, olivine, &c, so 

 abundant in the latter. 





