130 



Note on certain Mounds of 



X. — Note on certain Mounds of a scoriaceous character found near 

 Be liar y. — Btj the Editor. 



The narrative at page 13, in Mr. Taylor's Report on the Mackenzie 

 MSS., of the Hindu tradition concerning the origin of the remarkable 

 hillock of white stone, is curious and interesting on several accounts. 

 My friend Lieutenant Nevvbold, whose active and intelligent mind is 

 always alive to the observation of natural phenomena, wrote me an 

 account of a similar mound which he visited in 1836, forwarding at the 

 same time a drawing of which I now avail myself. 



Lieutenant Newbold thus describes the spot :— " About three miles 

 from Courtney, on the Hospet road, and eleven from Bellary, after 

 crossing a small stream running over a bed of greenstone, we ascended 

 a pass, of no great elevation, over the branch running from Soondoor, 

 and forming the Copper Mountain range. On the right of the road, 

 near the top of the pass, surrounded almost and embosomed by hills 

 of considerable elevation, rises a small hill, apparently about forty-six 

 feet high and four hundred and twenty in circumference. The summit 

 is rounded and the surface partially covered with long dry grass, grow- 

 ing thinly; among which jut out masses of tufaceous scoriae : some, 

 passing in an almost continuous line round the hill, forming, as it were, 

 steps for the ascent. Towards the summit of this mound, wdiich ap- 

 pears to be entirely formed of scoriaj or ashes, the masses are more 

 - friable. 



" The mound, when struck forcibly by the heel or a heavy stone, 

 emits a sound as if cavernous ; and even in riding a horse over the 

 base the same effect is distinctly perceivable. On the top 1 found a 

 piece of clinkstone and a bit of hornblende rock, w^hich had evidently 

 been scooped by art, and had perhaps once formed part of the bottom 

 of a vessel. 



" Around the base, masses of ashes, mingled with fragments of the 

 surrounding formations, trap, and a few bits of iron ore, were scatter- 

 ed. We found two masses of ashes several hundred yards from the 

 spot, but these might have been conveyed thence. 



" The hills around appear to be of schistose ferruginous sandstone, 

 based on greenstone slate, in which minute scales of mica are found 

 disseminated. And blocks of a darkly tinted semitrous form, and 

 quartz, are found on the sides. The brook at the foot of the pass 

 there runs over a bed of compact greenstone. The banks are alluvial 

 gravel, over a bed of kankar. 



