CHAP. 4.] KARNÜL FORMATION.—BANAGANPILLY GROUP. 103 
of Moonimuddagoo. Diamond mines were formerly worked here, and the 
stones eut and polished in the town. The series 
Moonimuddagoo mines. 
of strata here is not of any thickness, merely 
a sort of skin covering the older Kapapan rocks, at least on that 
part of the hills where the diamonds were searched for; and the 
quartzites are very much of the same character as those of Banaganpilly. 
Over the old working grounds the beds are mainly thin and very 
pebbly, with chert, &c. I made every enquiry regarding these mines, 
but could only learn that they had long since ceased to be worked; and 
the state of the rooted-up ground on the plateau above and north of 
the town shows this. It is probable that the seam was totally worked 
out. Southwards of Moonimuddagoo, though I carried this series 
of quartzites right down to, and possibly beyond, the Penn-air river in 
the plateau hills of Chintacoonta, I could find no trace, nor learn any 
tradition, of diamonds having been worked beyond Moonimuddagoo. 
Possibly there may really be no further diamond-bearing seams in 
that direction, but the group of rocks in which these seams oceur at 
other places is certainly so continued; and in it are rocks like those 
now or formerly worked at Banaganpilly, Mooni- 
و‎ NOU muddagoo, and the region further north around 
Gooraman-conda. 
It 1s worthy of notice that in the three localities just given, the 
workers have taken the ground where a large superficial surface was 
exposed ; they have never tried the outcrop, which, if a seam could only 
be hit upon, would really be a much less troublesome and expensive 
opening for mining than that of having first to break through such 
hard and intractable rocks as the upper beds of the group are. 
On the eastern side of the Khoond-air valley there is an area of 
old and deserted diamond workings at the base of the Nullamullays east 
of Busswapoor, which was, I believe, partly mined and mainly washed. 
( 102 ) 
