136 
Reconk of the Geological Survey of India. 
[vol. VU. 
The Huttee-Kuttee reef is about 5 feet thick on the average, whore well-defined and 
wall-like. The strike, as before-mentioned, is north-by-west, south-by-east, with an easterly 
dip of from 40° to 50°. Much of the reef has been broken down, but a length of about 35 
yards remains like a cyclopian wall, and forms a very conspicuous landmark from the east. 
The only other reefs deserving separate mention form a group lying about a mile to a 
. „ . . mile and a half south of Dhoni village, on the north-east 
Eeefs in the Dhoai series. „ . , , 
hank ot the Kappatgode mass. Unlike the reefs already 
referred to, the reefs in this group consist, not of ordinary milk-white quartz, but of a dis¬ 
tinctly bluish or deep grey diaphanous variety, with a varying amount of enclosed scales of 
white or pale mica. These reefs may, according to their courses, be assigned to two subor¬ 
dinate groups, of which the one was north-west by south-east, the other north-east-by-east, 
south-west-by-west. The members of the latter sub-group are much the best defined, and 
form dyke-like veins 5 to C feet wide and from 400 to 600 yards long. The other set, 
lying on the cast side of the small stream, which flows from the north-east side of the 
Kappatgode into the Dhoni nullah, a little east of the village of Dhoni, ai'e less well-defined 
veins, but of considerably greater length than the former. 
None of the reefs in the Dhoni series run in the lines of bedding of the chloritic, horn- 
blendic, and micaceous beds they traverse; but there are a very large number of bunchy 
strings of quartz of the ordinary milky white variety which run in the lines of both bedding 
and cleavage, but all of a size far too small to show on any but a very large-scaled map. 
These, as well as the diaphanous quartz reefs, contain remarkably little iron oxide; the super¬ 
ficial staining they show is due mainly to the decomposition of included portions on the 
surrounding rock. 
The remaining quartz reefs noticed in the auriferous tract on the east flank of the 
Kappatgode, on the west flank of the ridge running north and north-west from the Kappat¬ 
gode, and in the valley to the north-west of Dhoni village, are all of the ordinary variety of 
quartz running more or less in the strike of the bedding, and presenting no noteworthy 
peculiarity. As in all schistose rocks of the ordinary types, an immense quantity of free 
quartz occurs throughout their mass, in the form of lamiHEB, strings, bunches of all possible 
sizes. It is from these, rather than from the debris of larger veins in reefs, that the innumer¬ 
able lumps of quartz covering the face of the country generally are derived. As the country 
is in most part utterly devoid of any vegetation except grass, all the larger occurrences of 
quartz are conspicuous objects in the landscape, need but little searching for, and are easily 
prospected. 
The almost invariable association of gold with the different sulphides of iron, lead, 
copper, &c., in quartz reefs, is well known; and hence 
Beefs in which a sulphide was in prospecting the reefs I have before referred to, I paid 
fuu ““’ great attention to the indications of the presence or absence 
ot sulphides, besides searching for metallic gold. In only three did I obtain positive evi¬ 
dence of the existence of a sulphide—the sulphide of iron—in the lorm of cubical pyrites. 
These three were the Huttee-Kuttee reef and the two parallel reefs to the east of Venkatapoor, 
but the number of inclosed crystals is in each case very small. It is largest in the Huttee- 
Kuttee reef. Much of the quartz in the different reefs is what the Australian miners 
technically call “mouse eaten;” that is, full of cavities formed by the weathering out of 
other mineral substances which had been enclosed. In the great majority of cases it was 
clear from the form of the cavities left that the enclosed minerals had been chlorite or horn¬ 
blende. Hone of the cavities were cubical. In one reef in the Dhoni group I noticed some 
small and rbomboidal cavities, probably due to the removal of enclosed crystals of calcspar. 
Free gold is often found left behind in such cavities in really auriferous reefs in Australia 
