In the hills of Aurangabad, the purple and grey vesicular and amygdaloidal traps are very abundant. At the base of the hills they are, as usual, tinged with red. The hummocks and steep slopes above the perpendicular scarps are formed of decomposing dolerites. The scarps themselves consist of compact ashy beds interstratified with anamesite. Several small dikes occur between Aurangabad and Chikaltana; and the metal on the Jalna road consists of little cubes of basalt. A heavier dike is seen between Aurangabad and Harsul; and another crosses the road near Daulatabad. They have a direction north by east, and south by west. The hills are generally in three heavy terraces, with the highest consisting of hummocks or humpbacked mounds; but many of the hills both at Sattara and Aurangabad consist of five or six smaller terraces of vesicular trap. The winding excavations into the Daulatabad hill-fort are cut out of the compact ashy beds that form the wonderful perpendicular scarp all round the hill. On the Nandgaon road to the left bank of the Sivna beyond Deogaon, the rocks are the usual amygdaloidal trap, with some reddish earth about the 14th mile. Crystalline flows occur from the right bank of the Sivna to the village of Tharoda, distant about 18 miles, and the basalt is close-grained and compact, and splits up into cubes. The country is reddish in two insignificant instances towards the hollows, but otherwise it is covered with very black soil, often full of hard basaltic boulders. Amygdaloidal flows are met with at Tharoda, but basalt is still frequent. In descending the low ghit to the Nizam’s frontier at Galmodi, basaltic rocks are first seen, then a parting of clay, and then amygdaloidal and vesicular traps.
