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DIAMONDS.
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they
found a great number of stones from ten to forty carats, and sometimes
bigger, among the rest that large stone that weighed 900 carats, which
Mirimgola presented to Aurengzeb.*
After
the miners have pitched upon the place where they intend to work they
level another place close by, of the same extent, or else a little
bigger, which they enclose with a wall about two feet high. In the
bottom of that little wall, at the distance of every two feet, they
make small holes to let in the water, which they stop up afterwards
till they come to drain out the water again. The place being prepared
the people that are to work meet all together, men, women, and
children, with the workmaster in the company of his friends and
relations. Then he brings along with him some little image of the god
that they adore.
After worship of this and a feast of rice, Tavernier continues :—
When
the feast is over the men fall to digging, the women and children to
carry earth to the place prepared in that manner as I have already
described. They dig ten, twelve, and sometimes fourteen feet deep, but
when they come to any water they leave off.
All
the earth being carried into the place before mentioned, the men,
women, and children throw the water which is in the drains upon the
earth, letting it soak for two or three days according to the hardness
of it, till it comes to be a kind of batter, then they open the holes
in the wall to let out the water and throw on more water still, till
all the mud be washed away and nothing left but the sand. After that
they dry it in the sun, and then they winnow the sand in little winnows
as we winnow our corn.
.... The earth being thus winnowed, they spread it with a kind of rake, as thin as they possibly can ; then
* This by some authorities is thought to have been the Koh-i-nur. If so it was found about the year 1550.
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