SUBAERIAL FORMATIONS AND SOILS. 189 



likely have been one of the consequences of the great rain-storm of 



1 85 1, which caused great mischief throughout the district by the 



heavy floods it gave rise to. 



The other travertine deposit met with is in the gorge by which 



the drainage of the southernmost end of the 

 Golla Linganaha 

 waterfall. Sandur hills falls into the Rampur nala, a 



little distance south of Golla Linganahalli. The travertine mass 



forms a small vertical cliff across the bed of the torrent which in 



wet weather must make a pretty waterfall here. 



The haematite breccias above referred to are very numerous on the 



Hematite surface baSSett ed S eS ° f man y ° f the g reat ^^atite 



breccias. beds of the Dharwar system. They are formed 



simply by the cementation of angular debris of the haematite beds by 

 a local ferruginous mud formed by the atmospheric agencies con- 

 tinuously at work. Examples of such breccias are extremely common 

 but none were noted large enough to be mapped : indeed very few of 

 them cover an area of more than a few square yards. They not un- 

 frequently assume a pseudo-lateritic appearance where the de*bris 

 had been much comminuted. One of the best if not the very 

 best example of a highly lateritized breccia is that covering the 

 small summit plateau of the Copper Mountain. 



The soils oj the Bellary district are chiefly referable to the two 



great divisions of the red and the black, and 

 Soils. 



their distribution is largely affected by the 



presence or absence of hilly or deeply broken ground. Where the 

 ground is hilly, as in the western parts of the district, there the 

 cotton soil forms spreads only in the central parts of the flats, but 

 wherever the ground rises steeply it disappears as a rule with but very 

 few exceptions. Among the hilly and rocky tracts black soil hardly 

 ever occurs, the rocks there being almost always covered or surround- 

 ed by red soils of varying richness in their percentage of iron oxides. 

 Even in the middle of the greatest spreads of cotton soil wherever 

 a large rock or hill stands up, it will, in ninety-nine cases in a 

 hundred be found surrounded by a large or small talus of red soil, 



( >89 ) 



