Weiragurh or Weiragud, eighty miles South-east of Nagpur.
This locality, in Lat. 200 26', Long. 790
31' 30", has been ascertained to be identical with Beiragurh in the
Sobah Berar, which is mentioned in the " Ain-i-Akbari" * as possessing
a diamond mine. It is also alluded to as yielding diamonds in the year
1425 by Ferishta.f
Weiragurh
has not as yet been mapped geologically, and information regarding the
rocks is somewhat incomplete. The Rev. Messrs. Hislop and Hunter, in
their well-known Paper]: describing the formations of the Central
Provinces of India, merely say that the matrix of the diamonds is a
lateritic grit, the only rock in its vicinity being quartzose and
metamorphic. Hence they argue that Malcolmson,§ and after him Newbold,
were wrong in inferring the identity of the sandstones of Central with
that of Southern India from the supposed occurrence of the diamond in
the former, and they enlarge upon the supposed fact that most of the
diamond-bearing deposits, though resting on rocks of various ages, are
merely superficial and recent, and that therefore the diamond does not
afford a safe guide for correlating the older rocks.
The
whole discussion shows misconceptions on both sides, which our present
knowledge enables us, perhaps, to clear up. It is quite true that the
sandstones of
*
Gladwin's translation. London : 1800. Vol. ii. p. 58. + History. Ed. J.
Briggs. London: 1819. P. 406. J "Journal of the Geological Society,"
vol. xi. p. 355. § "Bombay Branch Royal Asiatic Society's Journal,''
vol. i, p. 520.
