300 



GEOLOGICAL SURVEY 



make walking over them a most unpleasant performance* 

 There is nothing to distinguish these pits from those recently 

 dug and worked in the Banaganpilly beds in Karnul District, 

 and no trace of any other mineral worth mining for could be 

 found in adjoining undisturbed parts of the beds, nor among 

 the debris in and around the pits. It may then be assumed 

 pretty safely that these are old diamond pits once largely 

 worked, but abandoned for some reason a long time back, as 

 all the debris is much weathered and lichen covered. If 

 the theory advanced by Mr. Ball in various places, 14 on the 

 strength of a new interpretation of a passage in Tavernier's 

 travels be true, that Kollur on the Kistna be the " Gani Cou- 

 lour," near which the far-famed Koh-i-nur was found, one of 

 these old pits may have yielded that most celebrated gem, 

 for they are the nearest important group of mines to Kollur. 

 On the Kollur side of the great Pulichinta hill only a few scat- 

 tered pits, trial pits as it were, were observed, but it is possi- 

 ble a group of them may be hidden in the extensive jungle 

 covering much of that neighbourhood. Anyhow Tavernier's 

 itinerary is geographically in favor of Kollur, the eastward 

 direction, the remarkable coincidence of the names of four 

 of his stages in so short a route being identifiable, the cross- 

 ing of one great river (not two) to Kollur, a name identical 

 in sound with the second half of the double name given 

 by Tavernier, the proximity of the lofty and very bold 

 Pulichinta ridge and other high hills to the south and south- 

 west, all these points are in favor of Mr. Ball's theory, which 

 has, however, been quite recently assailed by a writer in the 

 Madras Mail in a review of the volume on Economic Geology. 

 This writer starts by overlooking the fact that Tavernier 

 travelled eas tward in goingto Gani Ooulour, not due southward 

 as he would have had to do in going to Eamalkota, south of 



14 Manual of the Geology of India, vol. iii, Economic Geology, p. 16, &c. 



