20 FOOTE : GEOLOGY OF THE BELLARY DISTRICT, 



I have no personal experience of Bellary district during the 

 south-west monsoon, but that season has the reputation of being a 

 very pleasant one, the days being cloudy and the air fresh. 



Like many other districts lying within the t( Dry zone, " Bellary 

 has suffered frequently and severely from famines. Many traces of 

 such exist in the ruins of abandoned villages and hamlets, numbers of 

 •which are to be met with throughout the district. 



A very common idea exists among people who know the district 

 but imperfectly, that it is a generally very ugly 

 one. This is far too sweeping a condemnation 

 for any part of it, and for a great part of it the reverse of true. 



The great black soil plains which are traversed by the railways 

 are certainly not beautiful, even when green and crop-covered 7 

 because of the dull and sad colour of the soil and the extreme 

 treelessness of the landscape, but they are redeemed in most parts 

 from monotony by the numerous picturesque rocky hills which rise 

 out of them as islands out of the sea. Even in the hottest part of the 

 hot weather the scenery is diversified by these numerous hills, and it 

 is only when they are shut out of sight by mirage and thick waving 

 heat haze that the term " ugly " can be at all deservedly applied to the 

 landscape, and that only during the middle of the day. No green 

 grass remains and the only green to be seen is that of a few scat- 

 tered nim trees and babuls. 1 The black soil is deeply cracked 

 in every direction and becomes difficult and tiring to walk over, and 

 very dangerous for fast riding. 



In the mountainous and hilly parts of the country there is much 

 picturesque scenery, and some of the gorges in the Sandur hills, and 

 the gorge of the Tungabhadra at Hampi, are really beautiful. 



^ilfelia indica (Margosa) and Acacia arabisa. 



( 20 ) 



