86 
Records of the Geological Survey of India. 
[VOL. V. 
Vindhyans is therefore obscure, all that can he safely asserted being that they cannot he 
more recent than the middle palaeozoic rocks of Europe, whilst they may be considerably 
more ancient. 
The Bandelkhand Vindhyan area is entirely outside of the Bombay Presidency, its 
south-western corner being at Barwai in the Narbada valley, but the representatives 
of the same series in tho Krishna valley and its vicinity occupy a well marked belt, locally 
of considerable width in the southern part of the Presidency, intervening between the 
trap and tho metamorphie rocks. These hods appear on the west coast at Ochra, a little 
north of Mai wan. They are well seen at the foot of the Phonda ghat, and consist of 
hardened sandstone approaching quartzite, white, yellow, or pink in colour, and shales. 
The surface is very uneven, and had evidently suffered greatly from denudation of an irregular 
kind before it was covered by trap; hence their distribution at the base of the volcanic 
series is very irregular. 
Above the gli&ts the quartzites reappear in the south of the Kolapur territory, and 
extend eastwards in a hand of very variable width across the southern parts of the Belgaou 
and Kaladghi districts into the Nizam’s dominions. 
On its northern side this belt of country is hounded in most parts by the extremely 
ragged southern edge of tho Deccan trap-area. To the south it is bounded for some 
distance by the trap, but after that by the northern edge of the great gneiss-area of 
Madras. A little oast of where those rocks cross the Krishna river, thirty miles east-north¬ 
east of lvaladghi, the continuity of the belt is broken for a short distance; but another 
series of quartzites, shales, and limestones is met with at Mudehehal, and stretches away to 
the north-east into tho Nizam’s territory to the neighbourhood of Gulbarga. 
In the central part of tho area around Kaladghi the quartzites are overlaid by a great 
thickness of limestones and shales; above these, again, comes a considerable quartzite 
series, which in its turn is overlaid by another set of limestones and shales. These different 
limestones, &c., occupy a considerable area in the valley of the Gatparba, both east and west of 
Kaladghi. The limestones are generally subcrystalline and of various degrees of purity; 
they are often highly silicious, and many beds are very argillaceous—indeed often pass into 
calcareous shale. 
The lower quartzites are considerably tilted along the greater part of the southern 
boundary and form a fringing ridge, with an abrupt scarp, overlooking tho gneiss area. 
Tho basement beds of the lower quartzite series contain many very remarkable con¬ 
glomerate beds; tho included pebbles being of banded jasper, quartz and felspar, derived 
from the gneissic series. 
Some few beds of jaspery haematite-schist occur in the lower quartzite series in Balgi 
ridge north of Kaladghi. 
Where tho beds are lying quite undisturbed and horizontal they have not assumed the 
character of quartzites, but are true sandstones, hut, wherever disturbed, tho metamorphosing 
effect of pressure has changed them into more or less perfect quartzites. Two of the most 
beautiful and interesting scenes in Western India—the falls of the Gatparba at Gokak and 
the l ' Naul Tirth” (the peacock’s bath) in the gorge of the Malparba river near Manoli—are 
due to the peculiar position of the lower part of the quartzites. 
The series of quartzites which lies near Mudehehal eastward of the break above referred 
1o differs from the Kaladghi series in several important points; the former consists of a thin 
basement-bed of pebbly sandstone overlaid by shaly sandstones, and these again capped by 
