Ch. 3: Indian Diamonds

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	INDIAN DIAMONDS

	and for nearly a century almost all the new diamonds have come from there. Most of the Indian diamond mines, as well as those of Egypt and Borneo, long ago ceased their yield. In Golconda diamonds were found by treading the earth—a soft carboniferous loam—with the naked feet. Tradition tells that the diamond was worn as a jewel in India 5,000 years ago. The Bible establishes its existence as a graver nearly 3,000 years back. The poets and historians of Greece and Rome over 2,000 years ago informed us that India was the source of it. The diamond mining industry in India is therefore certainly 3,000 years old, and one may reasonably think that it is twice that old. The diamond was a local jewel. The reports of early European travelers do not indicate that diamonds were preeminent among the jewels of India. The diamond, before it was polished and cut, was not considered very much. It was mounted as a natural crystal, and when mounted, though a wonder stone, it was a clumsy crystal. Diamond mines of India were simply diggings here and there in a gravel deposit which, to the initiated, had the earmarks of diamonds. Sometimes it lay on the surface, sometimes in the beds of streams, and at others, under a valueless covering of some other kind of earth, anywhere from two to twenty feet thick. Most of the so-called Indian diamond mines have been abandoned entirely. Previous to the discovery of the Brazilian mines in 1725 diamonds were found chiefly in India and Borneo. The early diamond-mining industry gave employment to a large number of people, but, owing to the gradual exhaustion of ²3

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