154 Captain Franklin on the Diamond Mines of 



The pakka, or rocky matrix, is very limited, stretching ge- 

 nerally from Kamariya to Brijpur, along the course of the 

 Bagin river. It is excavated at Kamariya, Bijpur, Bargari, 

 Myra and Etwa ; their is also a small deposit of it near the 

 town of Panna, but at Brijpur, from the effects of denuding 

 causes, it lies at the surface, and a very satisfactory section of 

 it is laid bare in the bed of a small rivulet about one mile west 

 of the village, where it appears to be a gritstone, composed of 

 white quartz gravel, cemented by silicious matter, and con- 

 taining rounded pebbles of quartz, jasper, hornstone, Lydian- 

 stone, &c. Thus it forms a conglomerate, which passes by 

 gradual transition into silicious sandstone. It is readily dis- 

 tinguished from its associated rock, differing greatly from it, 

 in as much as the sandstone in which it is found has a martial 

 argillaceous cement, and closely resembles that which forms 

 the upper layer of the cascade of the Bagin river. 



Kamariya Mines. — The most noted mines of this descrip- 

 tion of matrix are those of Kamariya and Panna ; at the for- 

 mer place they are on an average about fifteen feet deep, and 

 in one which I examined, the beds of slaty marl were two 

 feet below the surface, a thin stratum of red ironstone gravel 

 imbedded in ferruginous clay, and vegetable soil, were their 

 only covering ; they differed in no respect from those of Pi- 

 periya Ghat, they were marly, slaty, slightly micaceous, in- 

 terstratified with thin laminas of sandstone, and associated with 

 calcareous slates, which were dendritic between their partings, 

 and although their general colour was bluish-green, or greenish- 

 grey, yet there was a sufficient mixture of red to characterize 

 them ; they were about twelve feet thick, and immediately be- 

 low them was the rocky matrix of the diamond. 



The conglomerate is here as at Brijpur, a gritstone contain- 

 ing pebbles of quartz, both white and green jasper, hornstone, 

 Lydianstone, &c. and it is worthy of remark, that when the 

 green quartz pebbles abound, it is considered a good sign, and 

 so also when the gritstone is slightly ferruginous, the matrix 

 in these mines reposes on compact sandstone. 



Panna Mines. — The mines of Panna are of the same kind : 

 here also the stratum beneath the vegetable soil is red ironstone 

 gravel, below which are beds of slaty marl, better characterized 



