70 KING : COASTAL REGION OF THE GODAVABI DISTEICT. 



and again towards the Vizagapatam end of the field, but it is not known 

 to occur in masses of sufficient size or purity to make it worth working 

 otherwise than in the small way required for local demand. 



Kondapilli, north of Bezvada, has been long known for its carbuncles 

 or polished garnets ; but these are not of much value. They are there 

 washed or picked out from the sands in the neighbourhood of the town, 

 and their origiual matrix appears to be a band or bands of massive, 

 garnetiferous, hornblendic gneiss, which occur in and alongside the 

 great hill mass from whence this old and once important town takes 

 its name ; whence also they are continued to the north-north-east and 

 then northwards into the Chundragunda taluk or division of this eastern 

 portion of the Nizam's dominions. 



Coal. — Just outside the north-western edge of the area under 

 description, the field of lower Gondwanas in the neighbourhood of 

 Ashwaraopet possesses an outcrop of coal-bearing strata, which gave some 

 promise of the long-dreamed-of chance of coal in the Madras Presi- 

 dency ; but a series of borings which were put down at Beddadanole, 

 though they struck many seams of more or less coaly matter, showed 

 that none of these were worth working, while the borer appears to 

 have penetrated so near the floor of crystalline rocks on which this patch 

 of Barakar strata lies that there does not seem to be the slightest hope of 

 finding deeper or better seams at this place. 1 



1 For further particulars of this enquiry, see Rec. Geol. Surv. of India, Vols. V, p. 112, 

 VI., p. 57 ; and Proceedings of the Madras Government, Public Works Department, 

 December 1873, No. 273 ; July 1876, &c. 



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