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THE DIAMOND MINES OF INDIA 171
The
mines of the southern spur consist of deposits carried down from the
diamondiferous stratum. It lies on the surface in some places and under
a stratum of yellow clay in others.
The
Panna fields are supposed to be among the oldest of the Indian diamond
mines. As far as known, the district has never yielded as fine stones
as the others, but it has been prolific, and operations have been
carried on with more or less vigor constantly to the present time. The
entire output of India to-day is insignificant. The returns for 1900 of
the Bundelkhand district were but 169 carats. The production of India
for 1905 was 172.4 carats and for 1906, 305.9 carats, the increase
being chiefly from the Panna mines. For the States of Panna, Charkhari
and Ajaigarh it was 628 carats, valued at £2,784 in 1907, and 140.75
carats valued at £940 in 1908. The exactions of the native princes are
so great there that they leave little inducement for the miners, yet
many of the natives continue to spend their lives in the wretched
occupation, probably from lack of better opportunities and an
hereditary habit. All stones over about 5-1/2 carats, and one-quarter
of the value of all under, is the toll exacted.
The
diamond mines of Sumbulpur are situated on the north bank of the
Mahanadi, where tributaries rising in the Baraphar hills join it, and
where the flow of the Mahanadi is due east, presenting a trap for
washings from the north. They are about 250 miles south and a little
east of Benares, in the Bengal province of Chutia Nagpur. Hugh Murray
in his Encyclopedia 1834 says of the diamonds of " Sumbulpoor," that
they were found mixed with sand of the " Gouel river which falls into
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