CHAP. 2.] ECONOMIC RESOURCES. 261 
his material-trains up to Gooty for the railway station at that town. 
The present great value and use of this stone can, however, be only 
temporary, though it will always be of value, now that the railway 
runs close alongside the quarries, and that flags can be much more easily 
made of it than of the gneiss, whieh has hitherto been so used in 
Madras and elsewhere within reach of the railway. 
The main resources of the eountry are,—diamonds, copper, lead, 
` Principal resources: 1ron, and building materials. The field of diamond- 
Diamonds. bearing deposits has been described, and its ex- 
posed area is delineated on our maps. Of course the preferable regions 
for seeking the gems will always be in the neighbourhood of the old 
mines: and there is no reason to doubt but that new workings may be 
Deposits indicated on Quite as profitable as the present ones. Prepara- 
E tory trials may be easily made anywhere in the 
area mapped ; preferably in the rock 27 situ, as is the case at Banagan- 
pily. There is, of course, always the chance that gravel deposits in the 
valleys below or in the neighbourhood of the Banaganpilly outcrop may 
contain diamonds; but these deposits are very local, and it is difficult 
and expensive working in deposits which are so liable to be flooded. 
At the best, however, diamond-mining for Europeans would, as 
DEDERE far as we can see, be a very risky speculation in 
STE peg: this area; the natives are most patient, and their 
expenditure on such works is very small. There appears, however, to 
be always a sufficiently remunerative supply of small and rough 
diamonds obtained to keep the present contractors working on from 
year to year. There is no account to be obtained of their having found 
any valuable diamonds: and it is hardly to be expected that they would 
volunteer the information. That Europeans, or a mining business 
organized and paid for by them, should be able to exist fora long time 
under what certainly seems a generally slow form of making money 
(with, it is true, occasional chances of a magnificent find) is, we fear, 
C 26) 
