PART 1.] 
Kiny: Kuddapah and Kurnool formations. 
much the appearance of a re-composed rock, in many places quite incoherent, harder at the 
top and outsides than internally, and the pebbles are all red, bright purple or ferruginous, 
glazed outside and not recognizable as derived from any of the traps of the country, unless 
from their resemblance they might be taken to have come from one of the beds of red 
bole, which are not very uncommon; hut then there is no reason why if so derived they 
should not he intermixed with other trap pebbles. This has all the appearance of a local 
deposit, does not crop out in some natural excavations near at the same level, and appa¬ 
rently passes away underneath the cotton soil, but being horizontal or nearly so shows 
for a considerable distance along a sluggish stream which occurs here, occasionally vary¬ 
ing iu structure so as to become a mottled white and purple rock of some strength. 
In one place on the hank of this stream a little cliff shows the incoherent gravel 
resting upon a soft ferruginous bed, about 9 feet thick, with some lines like those of 
deposition. Beneath this are 5 or 6 feet of greenish-gray trappean mudstone, very splintery 
and breaking up into cubical forms so much that it is nearly impossible to obtain a fresh 
fracture; some harder parts seem calcareous, and have a fracture resembling that of compact 
limestone. The laterite may he traced for more than a mile in an east and west direction. 
Near Budja Kaira, on the larger river here, strong vesicular laterite undulates about 
horizontally, but does not continue down the stream. 
Again at Reethpoor lying to the eastward from Oomrawuttee, there is a quantity 
of laterite in low swelling undulations—with the usual appearance of lateritic ground, a 
ferruginous more or less smooth surface and occasional hard projecting knobs, but no good 
sections of the rock. 
At Chickulda (the hill station on top of the Gawilghur range frequented by people 
from Elliohpoor), the plateau upon which it stands and the surrounding summits have a 
strongly lateritic appearance such as may be seen at Matheran and other summits of the 
Western Ghiits. 
These indications of laterite, occurring as they do in situations where the uppermost 
beds of the trap series might he supposed to occur, may indicate a similar or nearly the same 
lateritic horizon, which is known to occur among the uppermost, if not actually on the top 
of, the Deccan traps along the Western Ghats. Otherwise they may be referrible to zones 
of ferruginous strata more specially lateritic than the layers of red boley trap referred to as 
occurring in this neighbourhood and on the Deccan plateau ; but their limited development 
and isolated character hardly afford sufficient grounds to reason upon with much probability 
of arriving at trustworthy conclusions. 
The cotton soil or black soil of the Poorna valley, although common enough, as is usual 
in these trappean districts, has no geological peculiarity here requiring attention. To its 
development, however, and the fertile nature of soils derived from the trap may he traced 
doubtless the name which this country has obtained as a cotton-producing district. 
On the Kuddapah and Kurnool Formations : by W. King, June., B. A. 
The rooks forming the greater parts of the Kuddapah and Kurnool districts in the 
Madras Presidency have been long known through previous explorers under the names of 
“ Diamond Sandstone,” “ Clay-slate Formation,” <fcc. They extend over such an immense 
area, and are found to be so complex in their stratigraphy and so diversified in their rela¬ 
tions, particularly among the lower and older groups, that their systematic survey is not 
yet quite completed, though some years have already been spent in their examination. Suf¬ 
ficient, however. is now known of them to warrant the giving a short sketch of this interest¬ 
ing series of rocks. 
The series consists of great thicknesses of quartzites (altered sandstones), slates, trap- 
flows and their associates, and limestones ; and these are found to constitute two (if not 
more) great and distinct formations. To the older, being so typically and largely exhibited 
in the Kuddapah district,* the name Kuddapah Formation has been assigned ; while the 
newer Kurnool Formation derives its appellation from the adjoining district over which 
it is so very well seen. 
* Kuddapah town itself is on shales and limestones of one of the groups in the newer formation. 
