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THE DIAMOND MINES OF INDIA 163
It
is said that Akbar of the Mogul dynasty derived a revenue of £80,000
per annum from the diamond mines in his kingdom. They were the Panna
mines, situated in Panna or Punna, Bundelkhand, Central India. This
prince reigned from 1560 to 1605.
The
celebrated Golconda mines received the name from an ancient town and
fort of that name, now in ruins, near the city of Hyderabad, where the
stones were collected and polished. The diamonds were really obtained
throughout an extensive region watered by the Kistna or Krishna, and
Godavari rivers, and included the modern districts of Krishna,
Godavari, Bellary, Cuddapah and Kurnul. Until 1687, when Aurungzebe
annexed it to the Delhi empire, Golconda was a large and powerful
kingdom of the Deccan, a name given to the central part of India lying
south of the Nerbudda or Nabada river, which separated it from
Hindustan proper. The Deccan extended south as far as the Krishna
river, and in this territory many of the Indian diamond mines were
situated.
The
most southerly group of mines are on the banks of the Pannar river in
the Madras Presidency where it cuts through the Eastern Ghats north of
Madras. These must not be confounded with the Panna or Punna mines of
the Bundelkhand further north. The diamonds occur in the Banaganpilly,
a stratum, two or three feet thick, of water-worn pebbles and clay,
lying under several feet of sand and rubble, and a tough clay similar
to that which binds the pebbles of the dia-mondiferous stratum. This is
now known as the Cuddapah district. It formerly yielded some very fine
stones, but has apparently been long since exhausted.
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