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CHAPTER IX
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DIAMOND MINES OF BRAZIL
DIAMONDS were
first discovered in Brazil by natives while washing the sands for
gold, in the early part of the eighteenth century. The year 1725 is
given as the date, but they were not recognized until 1727 and may have
been found even earlier. There is a tradition that the stones
afterwards found to be diamonds, were known in the gold washings as
early as 1670. Inasmuch as the streams in which the gold washings were
conducted proved later to be very rich in diamonds, it is quite
probable that they had attracted attention for many years before their
value was known. It is said that the gold miners used them as counters
in their games of chance, and that a man who had seen rough diamonds in
India, observing them in the hands of the miners and noting the
similarity, secured a number of them and took them to Lisbon the
following year, where their identity was established. He sold them, and
in doing so drew attention to the new fields.
The
discovery was made in the neighborhood of Tejuco, a town in the
district of Serra do Frio, province of Minas Geraes, Brazil, about 300 miles
north of Rio de Janeiro and about 250 miles west of the Atlantic coast.
Tejuco is now called Diamantina and is the center of the
diamond industry of the Minas Geraes district, Brazil. The 12
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