1S37.J 



Geology of the Deccan. 



357 



At Kurkumb and at Salseh ten miles south of the fortress of Kurmaleh, 

 it is met with under black earth in unusually thick strata, and of a 

 peculiar whiteness. Major Franklin notices " a stratum of earthy 

 limestone, white as chalk, at Sagar, occurring under a stratum of 

 amorphous trap."* 



Nodular Limestone.— The nodular limestone, which is the well- 

 known kunkurf of India {kunkur being a native word for nodule), oc- 

 curs, like the preceding, disseminated or diffused in the soil, and also 

 on the surface. I have never seen the nodules of a regular crystalline 

 form. They vary in size from a marble to a twelve-pound shot, and many 

 of them are exceedingly irregular in shape, particularly those dug from 

 the banks of rivers. They are sometimes obscurely lenticular. They are 

 so abundant in certain localities that they appear as if showered upon 

 the earth, and disguise its colour. Dr. Buchanan mentions the same in 

 Rajmahl. When upon black soil, they are usually minute and tolera- 

 bly uniform in size : on other soils their form is variable. In the 

 ghats neither pulverulent nor nodular lime is met with. It is unneces- 

 sary to particularize the localities of the nodular kind, as it is of com- 

 mon occurrence eastward from the hilly tracts of the ghats, and is the 

 only source of lime for mortar, a class of persons making a livelihood 

 by collecting the larger nodules. When carefully burnt, they make an 

 excellent cement. Captain Dangerfield describes, " the occurrence 

 (in Malwa) in some parts, particularly near the bottom of the small 

 hills, and banks of the rivulets, of a thin bed of loose marl or coarse 

 earthy limestone," J 



Captain Coulthard says, " In Sagar a white patch of this limestone 

 " mouldering by the weather is the source from whence comes the 

 " particles of kunkur, mixed with the black basaltic earth of the neigh- 

 " bouring valley in such proportion as to add increased fertility to it ; 

 " and if a rivulet meanders through that valley (and such is generally 

 " the fact) patches made up of aggregated particles of the same, will 

 *' here and there be found ; and this it is which the native families pick 

 " out and work into lime."§ Captain Coulthard refers the origin of 

 the nodules to limestone rock underlying basaltic strata, but I cannot 

 trace them to such a source, not having seen strata of compact lime- 



* Physical Class, Asiatic Researches, part I, p. 30. 

 * The Mahratta word is not spelt with an " a." t Malcolm's Central India, p. 3?8. 

 \ «« Trap of the Sagar District/' Physical Class, Asiatic Researuhe*, p. GO. 



