123
Cuddapah.
154. The Cuddapah District was nearly, though not quite, exempt from
cholera in 1870. It felt the influence of the Tripatty out-
break in May, especially the talooks near to Tripatty.
Liability of Ceded
Districts to cholera in-
vasion.
155. The " Ceded Districts " of Bellary, Kurnool, and Cuddapah have been
supposed to contain something in their soil peculiarly attractive
of cholera, and I have lately made a tour through them with
the view of examining into the subject. As a matter of fact,
cholera is absent for longer periods together in these than in any other of the
Southern districts. From their geographical contiguity to Bombay and
Hyderabad, they are the first to suffer, when the epidemic wave from the north
is in movement, and during a year of invasion, or a year following invasion,
these districts have been known to feel the cholera influence most severely.
But cholera has evidently no resting place in the Ceded Districts. It dies
out over the whole tract of country for long periods together, just as
completely as it does in any province of Europe or America. When it does
come, it is peculiarly virulent, and prevails with greatest severity in the months
of May, June, July, August, and September.
Cotton plains.
156. The great cotton plains of the Bellary and Kurnool Districts are a
remarkable feature in the appearance of the country. The
black cotton soil districts are but thinly inhabited, the
population of Bellary being no more than 114 to the square mile. For miles on
either side of the North-West Railway Line, hardly a tree or village is to be seen.
The surface of the ground is gently undulating, and the black soil, which is
continuous over great areas, varies in depth from 1 to 10, or 15 feet. It rests upon
decomposing gneiss or granite, the felspar of which has decomposed into an
impure kaolin. The granitic and gneissoid rocks of this district, which under-
lie the decomposing material just adverted to, are of very fine colour and
texture, admirably adapted for solid masonry, for which purpose they have
been largely worked by the railway engineers along the North-West Line.
Cotton soil.
157. The black cotton surface soil of these dreary undulating plains has long
been a puzzle to geologists. Some have started a theory that
it results from the decomposition of trap or igneous rocks, but,
as regards the Bellary, Kurnool, and Cuddapah Districts, this is simply impossible,
for in these localities trap dykes are so few and far between that their decompo-
sition could certainly never have covered the face of the country with the thick-
ness of black soil we now see upon it. I reserve fora future occasion a description
of the microscopical and chemical features of this soil, and shall only allude nowto
some of its physical characteristics. In colour the soil is a dull bluish black, not
so cohesive when dry as some brown clays, and containing particles of silica and
occasional granules of decomposing feltspar. After heavy rain the surface of
the black soil fills like a sponge, and it is quite imposssible to walk or ride upon
it, without sinking deep into its adhesive surface. In dry weather the soil con-
tracts, and large fissures open out in it, many of them to a great depth. At the
dry season of the year only is the surface passable for men and animals. The
black soil does not shade off imperceptibily into the decomposed rock surface
beneath. The division is generally very sharply defined, and the contrast
between the black surface soil, and the white or reddish kaolin earth beneath,
most remarkable. The black soil is evidently a sub-aqueous or sub-aerial
deposit, such as might have formed at the bottom of a fresh water lake or swamp,
11