of
the Mahânadï also, rises in the same neighbourhood, and it is locally
called the Hira or diamond river, and its bed is said to have yielded
diamonds. Hence it is a natural deduction that the source of the
diamonds found in the beds of these rivers, which pursue such different
courses, is common to all, and that the diamond-bearing rocks will be
found there. Unfortunately before leaving India I had no opportunity of
putting this theory to the test, and I am not aware that the area has
been as yet fully explored.1
The
accompanying map will convey a clear idea of the relative positions of
the three localities, which have hitherto been much confused in the
accounts by different authors. In the south there is Sambalpur, on the
Mahânadï, of which I have elsewhere 2 published detailed
accounts of the geology, and of the records of the yield of diamonds
there in former times ; farther north is the locality on the Sänkh
river, which, as stated above, is one of the tributaries of the
Brahmani ; and lastly, on the other side of the watershed, is the site
of the locality, Sema on the Koel, a tributary of the Son, which I
identify with the Soumelpour of Tavernier.
As
Sambalpur is in the Central Provinces, and is therefore beyond the
region of the present discussion, not being included in Bengal, we may
now pass to the mention of the other two localities, as they are
referred to by various authorities since Tavernier's time.
Sumelpur (Mine de diamans), near a tributary of the Solon (i. e. Sone, called in its upper portion Rivière d'Andi, see ante, vol. i, p. 45), is represented on the Carte de l'Indoustan by M. Bellin, which was published in 1752 in the Histoire générale des Voyages.
Tieffenthaler,3
somewhere about the year 1766, wrote of Sommelpour as a place producing
an abundance of diamonds of good quality in the river Gouel, 30 milks S.E. from Rohtâs. He did not visit it himself, and perhaps he quoted from Tavernier.
Pennant,4
in the year 1798, mentions that a diamond mine was then being worked on
the Sänkh river, but he does not name his authority. He also states
that Soumelpour on the Gouel was the most noted and most ancient
locality for
1
In connexion with the diamonds of Bihar, it may be noted that in 1585
the King of Chota Nägpur was reduced to the status of a feudatory, and
in the reign of Jahângîr, up to which time the Musulman governors had
been satisfied with a tribute of two or three diamonds, Ibrahim Khân
Fath Jang, governor of Bihar, defeated the Bâjâ and carried off his
family diamonds (Sarat Chandra Boy, The Mundas, 151).
1 Economic Geology of India, p. 30.
* Bernoulli, Descr. de Finde, Berlin, 1791, i. 433.
' View of Hindoostan, ii. 140.
