64 FOOTE : GEOLOGY OF THE BELLARY DISTRICT. 



Haggari river ; on the south by the Anantapur District coinciding very 

 closely with the Bellary-Kistna Railway as far as Guntakal Junction ; 

 on the east similarly by the Madras Railway as far as Nagarur sta- 

 tion. From Nagarur station the boundary must follow the valley of 

 the great Harivanam nullah north-westward till it makes its great bend 

 to the north ; and thence the boundary must be run across westward 

 to the confluence of the Haggari with the Tungabhadra. 



As in the case of the Bellary sub-division, by far the largest part 

 Area much masked °f the area tnus defined is masked by great 

 y ac ' S0ll « spreads of cotton soil, and important exposures 



of rock are few and far between, and mostly wanting where most 

 required to elucidate the structure of the country. Owing to this 

 the geological interest in this sub-division centres almost entirely in 

 the Alur group of hills, which occupies the middle of the sub-division. 

 From it extend respectively to the west north-west and south-south- 

 west two lines of hills, and beside these there are only seven or eight 

 prominences in the area to which the name of hills could be ap- 

 plied. 



The' Alur hills form in plan a pointed oval, the point lying to the 



_ west north-west, in which direction they mea- 



The Alur hills. . J 



sure about 9 miles, and about 7 at right angles 



across the widest part of the group. The highest point is the summit 



of the Arrakera (Urrakaira) hill, 2,127' above sea level and about 700' 



over the adjoining plain. 



The prevalent rock is a hornblendic granitoid, generally banded. 

 The surfaces are but moderately blocky, and grey is the almost uni- 

 versal colour of the freshly broken rock. Small veins of epidote 

 (pistacite) are very common, and so also are veins of pegmatite of 

 white or pink colour. 



Malleshvvaram gudda (not shown in sheet 58), the centre of the 

 western part of the group, is quite as high in appearance as Arrakera 

 hill, and a much finer mass and far better worth climbing, the western 

 part being far more picturesque and better wooded ; less bared of 

 wood would probably be more correctly descriptive. 



( 64 ) 



