422 Notes, principally Geological, QNo. 162. 



Western facade of the Ghauts. We now descended the Ghauts 

 by the Hossulmakki Pass. Gneiss and its associated schists are seen as 

 at Gairsuppa ; but the gneiss is not so abundant. 



These rocks are for the most part covered by a bed of red clay, some- 

 times fifteen feet thick ; and on the summit of the Ghaut by laterite, 

 in insulated beds and large dark coloured blocks. The laterite is al- 

 most wanting on the steepest descents, but is seen on the terraces 

 which break the declivity, and again at a short distance from the base 

 covering for the most part the lowlands of Canara to the sea at Honore. 



Not far from the summit of the Ghauts two dykes of basaltic green- 

 stone were crossed, running in a S. E. direction. The dip of the hy- 

 pogene schists, which compose the great mass of the mountain chain, is 

 irregular and confused, both on the descent and at the base. 



The amount of dip varies from nearly vertical to horizontal, and 

 the strata in many situations have suffered irregular flexures and con- 

 tortions. One great mass of schists at the base dipped Westerly at an 

 angle of 30°. 



Base of the Western Ghauts. The gneiss and mica schists at the base 

 of the Ghauts are veined with a pegmatite composed of white quartz, 

 and flesh-coloured felspar, which is rather massive than schistose, and 

 occasionally exhibits a tendency to assume the doubly oblique prisma- 

 tic structure, or primary form of the latter mineral. Sometimes sil- 

 very white mica is seen segregated in this rock in very large rhombic 

 prisms, capable of being divided, like the hemi- prismatic talc mica of 

 Russia, called Muscovy glass, into extremely thin lamellae. 



The mica schist passes distinctly into a chloritic clay slate, and 

 into reddish and variegated slate clays resembling those around 

 Darwar in the South Mahratta country. The white and purplish 

 varieties have the same soft, and obscurely slaty structure. These 

 again, where exposed, rapidly assume the state of clay, under the 

 heavy monsoon rains. 



I observed several groupes of pinnacled columns, a foot or more in 

 height, formed in these clays by the action of the heavy drops of rain 

 falling from the high forest trees which shade them. On the top 

 of each pinnacle was a small pebble, which explained the modus 

 operandi. 



