78 Note on Saline Deposits in Hydrabad. [Frs. 
powdered quartz in the manufacture of bangles affords, attached to the 
glass, a hard solid pure white coat of muriate of soda, 3 of an inch 
thick. . Copious springs abound in the blue limestone, and those I saw 
were sweet, and probably flowed from the neighbouring sandstone. In 
a cavern in the lime opening above by a great longitudinal fissure, like 
that of Duncombe park, after a rapid descent of perhaps 30 or 40 yards, 
{ found further progress stopt by a stream of water running over a 
quartz sand. When the water was low, the natives told me they could £0 
further, but at that time it reached within half a foot of the roof of the 
contracted extremity. The sand was probably derived from the cap 
of the adjoining hill. The sides were rough, with stalagnite exceed- 
ingly like the kankar found in great beds lying on the limestone. 
It is probable that the stream is not long subterraneous, as numbers of 
small fish approached the torches. The natives gave them a name, 
but I regretted I could not catch one for examination. Superstitious 
stories led me to examine this, and other likely places for organic re- 
mains, and I think it probable, such may yet be found. In the sand- 
stone are the celebrated diamond mines of Banganopilly. Shafts 
being sunk through the rock, till they reach the conglomerate contain- 
ing the numerous species of minerals which experience has shewn to be 
associated with the gem, this is excavated and sent out of the mine 
to be broken up in search of the diamond. This conglomerate does 
not occupy a complete stratum, but generally varies in thickness. 
The sandstone in many places has been subjected to violent forces 
injecting, between its layers, a reddish iron-looking sandy rock, which 
has bent the thin strata above and below out of its place, and at others 
forced a way through the numerous vertical divisions of the stone, and 
appears to have flowed in a semifluid state over the surface, and to 
have carried along with it angular fragments of the rock, which 
are fixed in it like plums in a cake. In one or two _ instances, 
the fragments seemed to have been broken, but not removed from 
their original situation; the lines of separation being filled with the 
same matter that flowed out. The end of a neighbouring hill is covered 
with round stones, several feet in diameter, hard, black, and apparently 
composed of trap, and called in the language of the country ‘“ black 
balls.”’ The trap rocks are not known to exist within 50 miles. 
Amongst the ‘“‘ diamond stones,” as they are called, there is one of a 
jet black, and very hard, suggesting that it might be of a carbonaceous 
nature ; and the appearances of the action of fire would favour an hypo- 
thesis of the carbon of this mineral being changed by that action into 
the diamond. This is a mere fancy, but it seems sufficient to direct 
