cascalhon.
In Brazil, a deposit of pebbles, gravel, and ferruginous sand, containing diamonds or gold.
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the world > the earth > structure of the earth > structural features > boulder, pebble, or stone formation > [noun] > pebble formation
pebble stone1567
pebble1570
cascalho1812
pebble-cast1868
shotter1911
1812 J. Mawe Trav. Interior Brazil v. 77 The gold lies..in a stratum of rounded pebbles and gravel, called cascalhão.
1823 J. Mawe Treat. Diamonds (rev. ed.) i. 35 In one part of the Diamond District the cascalho forms a solid breccia.
1867 C. W. King Precious Stones (ed. 2) 59 The gravel—cascalhao—filling their beds is dug out.
1910 Encycl. Brit. VIII. 160/1 The diamond is found..in the gravels of the present rivers, embedded in a ferruginous clay-cemented conglomerate known as cascalho.
1957 Encycl. Brit. IV. 838/2 Carbonado..is found almost exclusively in the state of Bahia in Brazil, where it occurs in the cascalho or diamond-bearing gravel.
This entry has not yet been fully updated (first published 1933; most recently modified version published online December 2020).
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