IN BUxNDELKHAND. 101 



but that period being a troublesome aera in the annals of the Bundelas, it 

 is supposed, that they were not efficiently opened, until the time of his 

 grandson Subha Sinha. 



Their situation is peculiar, being confined to a small portion of the 

 great belt of sandstone which extends from Rotdsgerh, through the pro- 

 vinces of Boghelkhand and Bmidelkhnnd, until it is finally covered by the 

 overlying trap of Malwa and Sdgar; this, however, is but a small part of 

 the extent of this formation, for the break at Rotdsgerh is merely an 

 hiatus occasioned by the original current of the Soan valley, which doubt- 

 less swept away every vestige of this rock, until its force was turned aside 

 by the projecting points of the Vindliya range, near Monghir — after which, 

 in the Rdjmahal hills, the sandstone again appears as before — and from 

 that point it may be traced throughout the whole of the peninsula ; it is 

 the depositary of the diamond at Panna — and I have, no doubt, that the 

 rock mines both of Semhhelpur and Banganpilli, though far asunder, will 

 ere long be found to belong to the same formation ; in the mean time, the 

 following facts which have fallen under my own observation, on my route 

 from Beldri to Ajayagerh, may serve to identify the class and character 

 of the rock which contains the matrix of the diamond of Panna. 



The *first part of the route (or from Beldri to Ajayagerh ) crosses the 

 most lofty portion of the sandstone belt, usually called the Bandair hills — 

 which, without exception, is entirely composed of argillaceous sandstone, 

 either mottled or streaked — and opposite to the village of Piperiya, below the 

 Ghat of that name, I observed the sandstone reposing on beds of slaty marl. 



Having 



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* See the map whicli is appended to my paper on Geology, Art. 2d, of this volume ; also the 

 description of these hills in that article. 



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