Anniversary Address. 23 



Mr. Newbold in a paper tliat may be found in the Athenceum of 

 llth of June, 1843, lias described the diamond-bearing gravel of 

 Cuddapab, in Bundelcund, a little south of Grolconda. 



It holds rounded pebbles of trap, granite, schists derived from 

 beds twenty to forty miles distant, quartz, jasper, silex, sandstone, 

 and limestone of the vicinity. In it are broken or rolled 

 diamonds ) and as the diamond beds are occasionally covered by 

 Megur, or black cotton soil (which is also not uncommon in 

 Australia), I consider they are of the same age as the older 

 drift of the Cudgegong. But when these materials are cemented 

 at the upper part by KunTcur, which is a tu.faceous carbonate of 

 lime (very common in some parts of Australia), diamonds are 

 never found. In the Nizam's territory, such cemented beds 

 contain bones of the Mastodon. 



In the fifth volume of the second series of " Transactions of the 

 Geological Society of London'^ is a valuable memoir " On the 

 fossils of the Eastern portion of the great Basaltic district of 

 India," by the late Mr. Malcolmson, which was read in November 

 and December, 1837. In it he alludes to the Cuddepah diamond 

 mines, in the neighbourhood of which is abuadance of basalt. 

 He gives also a sketch of the position of the diamond sandstone 

 of Bangnapilly, which is horizontal, vertically jointed, resting on 

 schistose beds underlain by stratified limestone, and surmounted 

 by a diamond-bearing breccia, which is not interstratified, but is 

 a mixture of sandstone and other rocks, rounded and angular. 

 On the opposite side of the valley, according to Colonel Cullen, 

 the sandstore is replaced by a sharp ridge of trap, and on the 

 descent the schist and limestone were found to be capped by a 

 quartzose sandstone. Besides the diamond conglomerate, seams 

 of rock crystal occur, and fine white quartz charged with galens 

 and with specular, micaceous and pyritous iron. The slates are 

 occasionally flinty or jaspideous. The base of the whole is the 

 granite of the Carnatic, and this rock is penetrated by many 

 dykes of greenstone. In the diamond sandstone, magnetic iron 

 and corundum are met with. The fossils in the argillaceous 

 limestone are of fresh water origin. 



Mr. Malcomson opposes the idea of Major Eranklin, that the 

 diamond rocks belong to the Saliferous deposits of England. In 



