1839] 



in the Southern Mahratta Country. 



95 



East of the Mulnad is a great extent of alluvial plain, producing fine 

 crops of wheat, cotton, maizes, millet, &c* and on the Nizam's frontier 

 are found a succession of low dry hills, with tabular summits, often rising 

 in abrupt scarped precipices, and intersecting and traversing the plains 

 in various directions. They are clothed with low thorny jungle of babul 

 and acacia, and their bases, and the valleys between, composed of a light 

 sandy soil, are cultivated with millet, vetches, &c.f 



The first or mountainous division consists chiefly of micaceous, clay, 

 and other schists, which to the northward are succeeded by basaltic or 

 trap formation. The Mulnad is composed of undulating clay-slate hills, 

 which become covered with basalt to the north. This trap formation 

 extends in a slanting direction from S. W. to N. E. nearly coinciding 

 with a line drawn from Sadasheaghur on the coast, to Beejapoor and 

 Sholapoor— and, what is remarkable, is almost coincident w T ith that mark- 

 ing the separation of the two great tribes of the population using to- 

 tally distinct languages, — the Mahrattas and Canarese. 



The hills to the N. E. and E. are all of primitive sand-stone, sometimes 

 resting on schists, sometimes immediately on granite, which latter is 

 the rock nearest the surface in the central and eastern plains. But a 

 well defined range of hills to the S. W., called the Kupputgud, is entirely 

 composed of micaceous and clay slates, resting on granite. The hills more 

 to the N. and N. W. are basaltic. The extensive plains lying between 

 these different lines of hills and eminences are composed of the rich, 

 black mould, called regu>\ or cotton ground, resulting from decomposed 

 basaltic rocks. To the N. E. a considerable tract of limestone is found, 

 resting on the sandstone, about Bagalkote, Badami Hungund, Mudibi ■ 

 hal, &c. 



The distribution of species throughout these different tracts is shown 

 in the following table ; those marked * are confined to one tract only : — 



* Holms sorghum, Panicum Italicitm, Cicer arietinum. 

 % Panicum spicatum, Panicum miliare, Phascolus max, Phaseolus mungo, &e. 



