Panna in Burulclkhand. 151 



Report says, that they were first discovered in the time of 

 Raja Chitrasal, who ruled at Panna, in the reign of the em- 

 peror Aurangzeb, but that period being a troublesome aera in 

 the annals of the Bundelas, it is supposed, that they were not 

 efficiently opened, until the time of his grandson Subha Sinha. 



Their situation is peculiar, being confined to a small portion 

 of the great belt of sandstone which extends from Rotasgerh, 

 through the provinces of Boghelkhand and Bundelkhand, un- 

 til it is finally covered by the overlying trap of Malwa and 

 Sagar ,• this, however, is but a small part of the extent of this 

 formation, for the break at Rotasgerh is merely an hiatus oc- 

 casioned by the original current of the Soan valley, which 

 doubtless swept away every vestige of this rock, until its force 

 was turned aside by the projecting points of the Vindhya range, 

 near Monghir, — after which in the Rajmahal hills, the sand- 

 stone again appears as before, — and from that point it may be 

 traced throughout the whole of the peninsula ; it is the depo- 

 sitary of the diamond at Panna — and I have no doubt that 

 the rock mines both of Sembhelpur and Banganpiili, though 

 far asunder, will ere long be found to belong to the same for- 

 mation ; in the meantime, the following facts which have fal- 

 len under my own observation, on my route from Belari to 

 Ajayagerh, may serve to identify the class and character of 

 the rock which contains the matrix of the diamond of Panna. 



The first part of the route (or from Belari to Ajayagerh) 

 crosses the most lofty portion of the sandstone belt, usually 

 called the Bandair hills — which, without exception, is entirely 

 composed of argillaceous sandstone, either mottled or streak- 

 ed — and opposite to the village of Piperiya, below the Ghat 

 of that name, I observed the sandstone reposing on beds of 

 slaty marl. 



Having descended the Bandair hills by the Ghat of Piper- 

 iya, I came upon the second range, which, like the former, is 

 composed of sandstone, but the surface of its plateau being co- 

 vered with a stratum of lias limestone, the sandstone can only 

 be traced in the beds of rivers, or in small protruding elevations, 

 until it emerges from beneath the limestone and forms the 

 counterscarp of the Panna hills, where it is variegated and 



