SS (00 IK: GEOLOGY OF THE BELLARY DISTRICT. 



{rain no information about this possible old diamond working : no- 



bodv had ever heard of it. The place has, however, an unmistakeable 



resemblance to a diamond digging, and the pebbly conglomerate is 



quite sufficiently like to the Banaganapalli conglomerate to render 



it quite probable that the pits and platforms are genuine traces of 



the work of a diamond prospecting party in former but not very 



remote times. 



Limestones are of very uncommon occurrence in the Dharwars of 



the Mallapan ^iidda band. They were noted 

 Limestones, _ # 



only in three places, and in small quantity, and 



all about the same horizon near the base of the system. The local- 

 ities are: (i). On the top of the rising ground which is crossed 

 by the high road from Kuvina Hadagalli to Magalam, about half 

 a mile from the western edge of the Dharwar area. A few thin beds 

 of grey crystalline limestone are to be seen here cropping up over the 

 surface of the softer schists. 



(2). At the southern extremity of the hilly ridge north of Haggar- 

 nur (Huggarnoor) and about 2\ miles south of the beds just named. 

 The limestones here are very singular in character, for they include an 

 immense number of minute quartz pebbles which give them the nature 

 and look of a very coarse grit with grey crystalline calcareous matrix. 

 Overlying this grit are coarse chloritic flagstones with foliae of crystal- 

 line greyish limestone. All dip east, and may be traced for some dis- 

 tance northward along the low ridge of poor hsematitic quartzite, 

 which runs thence more or less continuously northward to the bank of 

 the Tungabhadra. Despite its coarseness, the gritty limestone has 

 been quarried to some extent. 



(3) . The third locality where limestone was found is at the base of 

 the Dharwars, 3 miles E. 5°N. of Harapanahalli. Here on the rise east 

 of Hombalgutta village, crystalline limestone occurs in a dark-green 

 argillo-silicious schist, which locally forms the base of the Dharwars. 

 A band of this schist forms a conspicuous outcrop on the outer ridge, 

 and at the southern end of this is a bed of the limestone which is 

 tolerably pure and nearly two feet thick. 

 ( 88 ) 



