CHAP. 4.] KARNÜL FORMATION.—BANAGANPILLY GROUP. 97 
for the seattered localities of diamond workings; or else the diamond 
seams may only be locally distributed in the group. On the other hand, 
the fact of diamond workings being scattered, or not in existence at all 
generally over the area of these rocks, may not prove the absence of the 
diamond: the non-speculative character of the natives of this country, 
and their having been perhaps mainly guided by chance findings of the 
gem, or their tendency to keep working about the neighbourhood of old 
diggings until the seam was worked out, or a fresh one opened, are 
points in favor of the possibility of the diamond being more generally 
distributed. The people of India are also very much given to the idea 
that the diamond grows, and consequently are continually re-sifting the 
old heaps of washed gravel in preference to breaking up new ground. 
The diamond mines of Banaganpilly have been more or less fully 
mico eM described by nearly all the writers referred to as 
۱ having examined the rocks of the Cuddapah and 
Kurnool districts. The most elaborate of these descriptions is that of 
Dr. Heyne in his “Tracts, Historical, and Statistical, on India," the 
reading of which will well repay any one who may take an interest in 
the subject, or feel inclined to search for the precious stones. Our map 
shows the group of rocks as it now lies exposed on the surface of the 
eountry, and I think that nearly everywhere in the area thus delineated, 
if an approach to the peculiar pebbly conglomerate and breccia m which 
we know that the diamond gangue is at present worked, be met with— 
and such are common all over—it would be worth while making prelimi- 
nary explorations, even though the people of the place were to say that 
there were no chance of diamonds. "They probably would never say this, 
however, the mere fact of the locality never having been worked being 
` quite sufficient in their eyes against it. 
The town of Banaganpilly* is situated on the western edge of the 
Khoond-air valley at the termination of a low and gently sloping range of 
* 15° 19 North Lat., 78° 17’ East Long., about 37 miles south-south-east of Kurnool. 
N (EO) 
