414 Notes, principally Geological, [No. 162. 



near Banganpilly, that beds of sandstone and sandstone conglomerate, 

 reposing immediately on granite, underlie the limestone ; and that the 

 limestone must have been consolidated prior to the deposition upon it 

 of the upper sandstone and its conglomerates, since in the latter I have 

 found imbedded pebbles from the subjacent limestone. The formation, 

 then, consists of an upper and lower sandstone and conglomerates, and 

 the intervening limestone and associated shales. - 



Leaving this granite based chain, the great frontier plains of the 

 Ceded Districts and Mysore are crossed to the hill fortresses of Rai- 

 droog, and Chittledroog, where we find magnificent outbursts of gra- 

 nite and other plutonic rocks, rising abruptly and irregularly from 

 the nearly vertical hypogene schists which have suffered every variety 

 of flexure and disturbance. 



Chundergooty Droog. The granite, on which stands the Droog or 

 hill fort of Chundergooty, rises into two lofty peaks, the steepest sides 

 of which are nearly parallel to those of the Western Ghauts, sloping 

 off towards the East and South. The joints in the lower ranges of 

 laminar granite, or granitoidal gneiss, are divided by vertical fissures 

 giving them much the appearance of vertical strata, as remarked by 

 Christie in his paper on the Geology of the South Mahratta country. 

 The Droog, it is said, was built in the time of the Pandion kings, and 

 strengthened by Hyder. The village in the base consists of about fifty 

 houses under a Killadar, with twenty men. Coffee is cultivated at 

 Sindli, a village about a koss distance, and iron, obtained from mines 

 at a short distance, is exported hence to the West coast. 



From Chundergooty to Siddapore, the road for the latter part lies over 

 the undulating and hilly tracts on the slopes of the Western Ghauts, 

 which gradually become more and more covered with wood. Granite, 

 and the hypogene rocks, intersected by dykes of basaltic greenstone 

 and overlaid occasionally by patches of laterite, are the only rocks 

 observed. About three koss distance from Siddapore lies the ancient 

 and decayed town of Bilghy, formerly the capital of the Santavi-raya 

 Rajahs. Siddapore is now the Kusbah town of the talook. It contains 

 between 200 and 300 houses, inhabited chiefly by Lingayats speaking 

 Canarese, Concanis, Haiga Brahmins and Mussulmans. The staple 

 articles of cultivation are rice, betel-nut, cardamoms, and black pep- 

 per. The three last are exported chiefly to Mysore, the Ceded Dis- 



