58 
Records of the Geological Survey of India. 
|_VOL. X, 
At the Tripetty end of the belt, this lower member is rather thin, and is especially 
marked by a very heavy dark-brown ferruginous conglomerate, and a strong conglomerate 
of clear quartz pebbles in a chocolate-brown silicious clay-stone (rather jaspery in 
appearance) or very hard compact sandy clay-stone. 
At the Ellore river, the main band of Tipper Gondwanas is separated from a 
more western area of plateau and scarped sandstones by an interval of alluvium. 
These constitute the Golapilly country, and it was from the low plateau to the west of 
Golapilly, near the village of Ravacherla, that I obtained the series of plant remains which 
led Dr. Eeistmantel to consider these sandstones as of Rajinehal age. 
This finding of the fossils at once confirmed me in my ideas as to the Golapilly area 
being an extension of the Tripetty beds and subjacent sandstones ; and I was finally led to 
consider these latter as representing the lower group of sandstones, but considerably thickened 
out. At the same lime, the Golapilly plateaus are, I think, composed in their upper 
beds of Tripetty sandstones, while the capping of the higher parts, as Doodoogut hill, 
are of the Rajalimandry sandstones. It is in these higher conglomerates and pebble beds 
that the old diamond mines or pits are excavated near Mulaily and Golapilly. 
Mr. Blanford found, and I have since seen myself, remains of Glossopieris and 
Vertebraria at the extreme northern edge of the Golapilly and Nuzaweed area of 
sandstones near the village of Somavarum ; and this naturally led him, in addition to 
the general lithological characters, to consider the whole area as of Ivanithi age. The 
plateau-form of the low hills even in the Somavarum parts of the area is, however, so con¬ 
stant, and the lithological resemblance between the conglomerates to the south-west of the 
village and those in the sandstones underlying the Ragavapuram shales is so strong, that 
I was obliged to look on this area as all of Upper Gondwanas, the Glossopteris and 
Vertebraria beds close to Somavarum being merely a remnant of the Kamthis, whilst there 
is no evidence of unconformity afforded by any striking change in the lie of the beds. 
Certainly, between Somavarum and the north-west base of the Doodoogut pla¬ 
teau, the Strata are generally unlike Kamthi beds. They are rather fine-grained, thin- 
bedded and platy micaceous sandstones ; and those lie on a heavy conglomerate (ferruginous) 
such as may often be seen in both Upper and Lower Gondwanas, though it struck me 
that here it is most like the jaspideous conglomerates in the group below the Ragavapuram 
shales. 
As already stated, the wide outcrop of the Upper Gondwana beds with the gentle slope 
from the north west, and the plateau-like character of the outlying hills, more especially in the 
Gollapilly and Sonavarum country, are wonderfully characteristic in contrast to the Chintal- 
poody country of Kamthis; but a further reason for my thus limiting the area of the Upper 
Gondwanas is the fact of their gneiss-floor being such as to have aided in giving them 
their flat lie, and that its evenness of surface does not extend under the Kamthis. 
At the Golapilly end of the country, also near Talapoody on the Godavari, and 
thence east-north-eastward, the crystallines rise from tho alluvium in long slopes, 
remarkably like those of the sandstones, and form plateau-like hills which are escarped 
to the north-west. Beyond these are further groups of hills and ridges, nearly all 
of which are more or less flat-topped, their upper surfaces having also a gentle 
vise to the north-west, until they reach their highest level (about 2,000 feet) in the 
Papaeonda or Bison hill-range, through which the Godavari has cut its great gorge. 
The same features are likewise seen very clearly in the numerous hills between Golapilly 
