24 FOOTE : GEOLOGY OF THE BELLARY DISTRICT. 



The sketch given in the Manual was as good as the geological 

 material then existing and compiled by a layman would admit it to be, 

 but the tocography of the district was very imperfect and the volume 

 further hanoicapped by the disgracefully rude map that was allowed 

 to accompany it. 



Several references to what was then known of the geology of the 

 district were made in my Memoir on the geological features of the 

 South Mahratta country and adjoining districts, (Memoirs) Geological 

 Survey of India, XII, pt. I, 1876. 



At the end of 1884, the regular geological survey of Bellary dis- 

 trict (in its present form) was taken up by me, 

 The Author. . 



and it was completed in March 1890, but with 



several long interruptions to the systematic work. In the season of 

 1887-88 I had the assistance of Mr. Philip Lake, B.A., Cantab., but 

 unfortunately only for a few weeks in Bellary district. Though quite 

 a young geologist, Mr. Lake had been highly trained and proved 

 himself a good and careful observer, and I would very gladly have 

 had his help to the end. A few notes of interest made by him will 

 be found further on. 



In 1886 appeared in the Records (Geological Survey of India, 

 XIX, 1886) some " Notes on the Geology of Parts of Bellary and 

 Anantapore," in which I gave a preliminary sketch of the distribution 

 of the Dharwar rocks in the Bellary district in three bands, as was 

 then supposed, and pointed out that nearly all the principal goldfields 

 then known in the peninsula lay in basins of that age. 



The name of " Dharwar" had been first applied by me to the 

 schistose series in my notes on a traverse across the goldfields of 

 Mysore which appeared in 1882, in the Records (Geological Survey of 

 India, XV, p. 191). The knowledge I gained of the different 

 bands of the schist which traverse Mysore had quite determined 

 me that it was necessary to treat them as a distinct system, not to 

 be mixed up with the older gneissic and granitoid series any longer, 

 and the name "Dharwar" was very suitable, as. that important town 

 stands on the largest of the schist bands ; the band, in fact, in which I 



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