describing
his visit said he went to the mines upon a hill to see them dig and
look for " Dimonds." The ground, he says, " is loose, of a red fat sand
and gravel." It contained black, red, and white stones. Some of the
miners picked it, while others with iron spades threw it into a heap,
where it was winnowed with baskets whereby the dust was driven out. The
remaining gravel was carried to a trough in which was water brought
thither from above a mile away, on men's heads. There it was washed,
the earth melting like sugar and running off with the water through a
hole. The gravel was then spread on a smooth place, where the men in
ranks, their faces to the sun, under the eye of an overseer, picked it
for diamonds. Most of these mines are now deserted.
The
Parteal mines, some of which were worked as late as 1850, are situated
on the north bank of the Kistna to the east of the Kollur mines, a
little east of the junction of the Munyeru river with the Kistna. Some
of these are said to have been very rich, tradition with its usual
liberality crediting them with " wagon loads " of diamonds. The stones
are in an alluvium of a decomposed diamondiferous stratum, which is
probably not yet exhausted, though it is abandoned.
There
is a sandstone conglomerate further east, at some distance from the
Kistna, resting on gneiss, which was worked with some success in the
early part of the nineteenth century. Pits fifteen feet or more deep
were dug in the deposit, and it was also worked in spots where the
decomposed material had been washed to the surface.
About
as far directly north of the Kollur mines as the latter are north of
Madras, is a diamondiferous deposit of yellow sandy earth of unknown
origin, which
