DIAMOND: OCCURRENCE IN INDIA 145 



described this district, and which probably corresponds to Cunnapurty of the present day. 

 West of Chennur, diamonds have also been found at Lamdur and Pinchetgapadu, and at a 

 few other places, of which Hussanapur (Dupand) may be mentioned as having at the 

 beginning of the nineteenth century yielded many stones. Still higher up the valley of the 

 Penner diamonds were formerly sought at Gandicotta, but with little success. 



All these mines are referred to as the Chennur mines. At Chennur itself the 

 abandoned mines are in the Banaganapalli sandstone or in the weathered products of this 

 rock. Many stones, some of very fine quality, have been found here. In two particular 

 cases d£'5000 and ,£3000 were obtained for single specimens. After a long period of idleness, 

 mining operations were, in 1869, again commenced, but without success. Under the surface 

 soil of this neighbourhood is a stratum 1^ feet thick of sand and gravel with clay, beneath 

 this a tenacious blue or black clay, 4 feet thick, and underlying all, the diamantiferous layer 

 5 to 2^ feet in thickness, and differing from the clay above only in that it contains many 

 large pebbles and boulders. The pebbles thus included in the diamantiferous clay consist 

 •of various minerals ; among others there are yellowish transpai-ent quartz, epidote, red, blue 

 and brown jaspery quartz, round nodules of limonite the size of a hazel-nut, and corundum. 

 The boulders are often the size of a man's head, and consist of sandstone, basalt, often of 

 hornstone, as well as fragments of felsite, a rock of which the hills standing 1000 feet above 

 ■Cuddapah are constituted. 



At Condapetta the mines are from 4 to 12 feet deep. Here there is a bed of earthy 

 sand, 3 to 10 feet thick, resting on a bed of pebbles, which vary in size between that of 

 a nut and that of a cobble, and among which the diamonds are found, usually loose, but 

 sometimes cemented to the pebbles. The latter usually consist of feri'uginous sandstone 

 or conglomerate, among these being others of quartz, chert, and jasper, the latter being 

 sometimes blue with red veins ; also porphyry containing crystals of felspar. The greater 

 number of these pebbles have been derived from the surrounding mountains, but some — for 

 ■example, those of porphyry — have been transported by water from greater distances. The 

 mines here, as at Chennur, are only worked in the dry season, since in the rainy season they 

 become filled with water, the removal of which would entail too much labour. 



The mines at WoblapuUy were opened somewhere about the year 1750. The diamonds 

 found here are flat and much worn and rounded, so that they show no definite crystalline 

 form. They are specially hard and have a high lustre. In colour they are clear white 

 or clear honey-yellow, also cream-coloured and greyish-white. They are found in 

 alluvial deposits of varying widths which follow the course of the river, and consist 

 chiefly of much-rounded nodules of limonite of about the size of a nut. This district 

 has not been systematically explored, the mines, of which the average depth is 16 feet, 

 are very irregularly scattered about, and have apparently never been of any great 

 importance. 



Following up the Penner valley and then turning to the north we reach Munimadagu 

 and Wajra Karur, two important diamond localities in the Bellary district. 



The first of these, Munimadagu, is sixteen miles west of Banaganapalli and forty- 

 one miles east of Wajra Karur. Here, in a circular area some twenty miles in circumference, 

 are a number of mines which in former times, especially during the period between the 

 beginning of last century and the year 1833, supplied the important market and cutting- 

 works of Bellary with the bulk of their material. The systematic working of the mines on 

 the particular diamantiferous bed has, however, now been given up, although a few stones are 

 occasionally still found in the neighbourhood. The diamond-bearing stratum is of small 

 thickness, and rests upon granite, gneiss, and similar rocks. 



K 



