|
THE DIAMOND MINES OF INDIA 175
uct of the mines went back with him to Delhi. In those days, " to the victor belong the spoils " was an axiom.
The
diamond region of India lies within an elevated triangle broken into
hills and valleys. It is bounded on the north by the Vindyan mountains,
and on the east and Brest by the Eastern and Western Ghats. The
land in the northern part of this triangle consists of what is called
the Upper Vindyan series, consisting of various groups of which the
second, called the Rewah group, carries the diamonds. This Upper
Vindyan series is absent in the south, where the Lower Vindyan series
comes to the surface, and in this the Banaganpilly group is
diamondif-erous. Imagine it. All over this wide territory, thousands
of years ago, the mother-rock of the diamonds was bared to the weather
and little by little broken up and scattered, the waters carrying it as
particles, with the precious enclosures freed from its embrace, far and
wide. During the centuries, the matrix changed and became altered
beyond recognition, but the diamond remained the same except for the
rounding of its corners where the journey was long and the ages of its
travels very many. More centuries, and the wash of mountain torrents
spread the debris of the hills and highlands grain by grain over the
thin stratum of diamonds which covered the earth, until they were
buried again by the accumulations of ages. More centuries, and new
streams cut their paths in the face of this new earth, uncovering here
and there the tombs of the diamonds of long ago, rolling the crystals
once more along the deep grooves of their sunlit beds, and leaving the
diamond stratum exposed again along their banks, or high up on the
hillsides where they cut deep into the earth. Who
|
||
|
|
||