ECONOMIC GEOLOGY. 61 



alluvial, and these were carried on in the plain around the village, the 

 ore or gravelly bed being some 14 feet beneath the surface, in the kunkury 

 calcareous travertine) clays so common in the older alluvial deposits. 



Voysey, Benza, and Newbold also refer to these mines in their 

 papers already quoted ; but only to the general effect that the diamonds 

 appear to have been obtained from the sandstones of the plateau, or 

 the alluvial grounds of the valley, but that no productive work 

 appeared to be going on in their time. 



My colleague, W. T. Blanford, who passed over the ground before 

 I did, refers to the region thus : — " The low rises south of Gollapili are 

 covered with the remains of old diggings, said to have been diamond 

 mines. I could not learn how long a time had elapsed since the works 

 had been abandoned : an old man, at least 60 years of age, told me 

 there had been no mining within his recollection, and the pits have all 

 fallen in, the whole country being covered over with thick bush jungle. 

 The diggings appear not to have been in the sandstone itself, but in 

 the very gravelly laterite which rests upon the sandstone, but the sur- 

 face is so much broken and altered by the pits that it is difficult to say. 

 The workings evidently cover a very considerable area, and are part of 

 the old diamond mines of Golconda, 1 the ancient name of the hill rana-e 

 north of the Godavari and the adjoining country." 3 



Iron-smelting.— The iron industry of this part of the country might 

 be improved to a great extent, for there are large stores of ore distri- 

 buted through the sandstones of Gollapili, Tripati, and Rajahmundry, 

 but as yet only small workings are carried on in the usual desultory 

 manner in a few localities. The general source of the ore is naturally 

 from that group of sandstones which is the most extensively exposed, 

 namely, the Rajahmundry group ; in the other groups there are only 

 edge outcrops for the most part, or much smaller surfaces ; for it is 

 to be remembered that the natives only work at the more easily-obtained 



1 " See Voysey, Journ. As. Soc, Bengal, 1833, p. 403 ; Newbold, Journ. As. Soc, Bengal, 

 VII, p. 232." 



2 Bee. Geol. Surv., India. Vol. V, pt. 1, p. 27. 



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