PART 1 .] 
King: Kuddapah and Kurnoolformations. 
9 
quartzites but the one now described. It is not, however, advisable to employ a name to 
distinguish a formation, which is derived from what is evidently only an accidental attribute 
of the rocks ; while it is not certain that the diamond sandstones of Pun n a in Central India, 
which belong to the \ indhyan Series, are on the same geological horizon as the diamond¬ 
bearing beds in the KriiNoots. 
This group of quartzites is a generally thin series of coarse sands, grits, and pebble 
beds, of dark colors; the sandstones being in thick beds, while the grits. &c., are generally 
thin and sometimes flaggy. The pebble beds are full of small fragments of chert of various 
colors which are evidently derived from the slates and trappean beds of the Kuddafahs, on 
the up-turned edges of which they now rest. 
The relations and constitution of the group were first made out at Banaganpilly in the 
Kurnool district, where the long sloping hill which rises to the west of the town is faced 
with the quartzites* From this point the strata were traced to the west, on either side of 
the Puspulla valley, as another narrow terrace of nearly horizontal beds of not much 
thickness, below and continuous with the terrace of limestones of the second group, already 
referred to as lying below the western scarps of the Ramwarum and Faneum hills. 
Indeed, these lowest quartzites form the toe of these western slopes. 
The thin-bedded pebbly strata which are generally the lowest in the group seem to be the 
holders of the gangue, or shaly seams, in which the diamonds are found, but it is only at 
rare intervals in the exposed area of these pebble-heds that workings have been opened, which 
is partly accounted for by the fact that these seams of sandy and pebbly shales are only of 
local occurrence in the quartzites. The selection of working sites seems mainly to have 
been guided by chance, as the finding of a diamond by a cooly or shepherd, and the selection 
has been a lucky one in only some cases, for there are localities where extensive workings 
have evidently been carried on for centuries; while others have soon been deserted. The 
diamonds found at present are very small and not of much value, nor do the returns seem to 
have been any better for many years. The workings are of two kinds ; mines excavated in 
the strata, or pits sunk at various points in the recent deposits of debris, shingle, and gravel 
derived from the denudation of the quartzites.f The Banaganpilly workings are mainly 
mines, while the now deserted pits at Chennoor near K uddapah were in recent gravels. 
In the Pain ad,| there are again a set of altered sandstones answering to this group, and 
there too among these beds are frequent traces of old diamond workings. 
The lowest group of the Kurnool formation is always found to be resting unconform¬ 
ity on other quartzites, slates, and limestones ; and where it. is overlapped by the superincum¬ 
bent limestones, these in their turn are found covering the older rocks in the same way ■ in 
fact, there is not the smallest doubt hut that the four groups now described constitute a 
distinct formation separable by a great interval of time from the subjacent strata or the 
Kuddapah. ’ 
Both formations are totally devoid of any fossil remains, at least not a trace of evidence 
ol organic life lias been found in their strata, and in this they are like the Vindhyans which 
are as indicative of a period when there was no life. No more likely series of rocks for con¬ 
taining such remains could be imagined; and one is tempted again and again to examine 
lavourable localities, but always with no other result than some deceptive concretions or 
worm-like tracks, or the most perfect surface of ripplings in the sandstones. 
Neither can it he that fossil remains which may have once existed can have been so 
completely obliterated by the metamorphic influence to which these rocks have been exposed 
as to have left no trace behind; for whenever we have the originally sedimentary contri¬ 
bution of the rock apparently completely baked out of sight, as it were,—as in the case of 
pebble beds and the coarsest conglomerates, which, until they are weathered, are as uniformly 
granular quartzites as one could wish to see—, the various weathering influences have again 
revealed the original, constitution. s 
» The Banaganpilly diamond mines are sunk and worked on the slope of this hill. 
1 * ?J. ese ^•feposit.s are often quite outside the area of KtinoAruis and Kvmroois, and hence we occasional!,, 
the latterraoks 8 “ ^ of 8 ™ite, or gneiss, when they are supposedto^tederi^d from 
t R,may he as well to notice that the so-called Juggiapctt coal-field is a north-easterly extension of the , 
area, and the Juggiapctt rocks arc Ivuhnools and Kuddapahs which are not at all of a ooai-bearing character Pa nati 
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