IN BUNDELKHAND. HI 



in a hollow resembling an inverted cone, which appears to have been ex- 

 cavated by the same process (more powerfully applied) which scooped 

 out those resemblances to it in miniature, which are observable in the 

 rocky beds of rivers, the diametef of the vortex is about 100 yards, and its 

 depth (I presume) cannot be less than 100 feet; on its periphery, superfi- 

 cial mines are wrought in sandstone, but the cavity of the chasm is filled 

 with green mud, containing calcareous matter, such as I can find no apt 

 similitude to, except by supposing it to be the abraded matter of the same 

 marly slates as those which occur in the mines of Panna and Katnant/a, 

 here deposited en masse, and there in slates ; this of course is mere conjec- 

 ture, but if the vortex has been formed as I suppose it to have been, the 

 matter could not in that case have acquired a schistose form ; be the facts 

 of the ca^^e however what they may; this singular deposite fills two-thirds 

 of the chasm, and at the top it has a thick crust of calcareous spar, which 

 is indistinctly stratified, and contains portions of the green mud between 

 its laminae. 



The diamond is rarely found in the calcareous crust, its habitat being 

 in the green mud, and it is believed by the natives, that the deeper a 

 shaft descends, the richer is the produce ; but although they are aware 

 of this circumstance, their ordinary means have never enabled them to 

 descend lower than fifty feet, the water at that depth overflowing their 

 works, and compelling them to desist: this deposite, therefore, and that of 

 the basin of the Bdgi/i river, appear to be two instances in which supe- 

 rior means might be employed, with effect, and perhaps with profit. 



Mode of washing and searching the Matrix. 



The mode of washing and searching is the same in all the mines, the 

 rocky matrix alone requiring to be broken ; it is first thrown into a 



trench 



