iSiO.] 



Notes^ principoMy Geological^ on Southern India. 



139 



the regur appear in this vicinity, and abundance of a "wliitish grey kan- 

 ker. Gneiss, interstratified with micaceous hornblende slate, is the prin- 

 cipal rock found in the valley, and on the plain. Strata nearly vertical 

 — direction northerly — dip to the east. In a nullah near Somundapilly, 

 is a bed of gneiss, with actynolite in tabular friable crystals, with the 

 usual band of felspar and quartz intervening betv/een it and the gneiss ; 

 the latter rock in the vicinity of the bed is contorted. A ciyke of basal- 

 tic greenstone running east and west was not many paces distant. Both 

 this rock and the actynolite are not so often seen. 



Magnetic iron sann, is procured in the neighbourhood of Paupreddy, 

 a village about five miles from Palsamudrum, and there smelted. I 

 saw only one furnace, which is of much smaller dimensions than those 

 at Kootul in Mysore. There are furnaces, I am told, at Niddamaumri, 

 in the adjoining taluk of Pennaconda. I observed a few patches of 

 regur in the low grounds about Jaulipetf. The gneiss, about this place, 

 where it has been penetrated by the basaltic d}ke, is solid and compact, 

 resembling close grained granite. A greenish eurite in thin veins tra- 

 verses many of the blocks, giving them a schistose structure. 



The gneiss frequently imbods large crystals of a white felspar, which 

 impart to the rock a porphyritic appearance, singularly contrasted 

 with its own lamellar form, and can scarcely be judged of in a hand- 

 specimen. A greyish white, and rather friable kanker, is found at a 

 little distance beneath the surface, in beds about a foot deep, and 

 penetrating the subjacent gneiss. Near Raichoor I saw a nule stone 

 and clay furnace for burning it into chunam, about four feet high and 

 20 inches in diameter. Salt-pits are excavated on the banks of the 

 nullahs. N. E. of Goghirry at the foot of the hill of Shah-dw-gum, 

 lies a low hill, crested with dark looking rocks, visible at a great dis- 

 tance, which are easily recognized to be part of a basaltic dvke. It is 

 shortly afterwards crossed about half a mile to the east of the hill, and 

 is about 30 paces broad — direction, east. Two others of less dimensions 

 are crossed shortly afterwards x they have a similar direction. Frag- 

 ments of actynolite slate are frequently picked up, and it may be s eeti 

 in thin veins traversing the red pegmatite. A section of a well at 

 Terimany, about 25 feet deep, presents the following strata : 3 feet gra- 

 vel; 4 feet grey earth; 18 feet beds of red felspar and quartz, with 

 decaying greenish earth, and friable kanker in veins and fissures. 



Gneiss is, as before remarked, the prevalent rock : at the same time 

 it must be observed, that blocks of granite, and a red quartz rook, re- 

 sembling that cresting the sandstone and clay slate formation of Cud- 

 dapah, are seen in the walls of the fort and choultry, probably bro ught 

 from the range north of Anantipur, which appears to be a continuation 

 of the sandstone ranges of Gooty. 



