in
the month of November, and continuing until the „ mencement of the
rainy season, more especially in the bed of the Mahanudi on its left
shore, where some other small rivers, Maund, Reloo, Eeb, &c, empty
into it. Four or five hundred individuals, consisting of men, women,
and children, are examining continually all the spots of the river from
Cauderpoor to Longpoor, a distance of about one hundred and twenty
miles, till the stream is impeded by the rocks ; and likewise all
excavations or other cavities of the beds where any alluvial deposits
may be traced. All their implements consist of a pickaxe (ankova), a
board five feet in length, excavated three inches in the middle, but
provided with its border (daer), and a smaller similar implement,
called by them kootla, both of the shape of a shovel. The process is
very simple : they first dig the earth with the axe, and let it
accumulate in heaps.along the shore; the women afterwards take it on
their large shovels, and allow the water to run over the earth; they
then pick the flints and coarse gravel out of it, and removing the
residue on smaller shovels, spread it out, and examine it very
carefully, separating from it the diamonds and grains of gold. Another
method pursued in the East Indies is to surround a small plain where
the diamonds are expected to be found, with a wall two feet high, under
which water is permitted to run by several openings ; after having
thrown a good deal of earth within the wall, and having allowed the
water to pass through two or three times, the larger stones are picked
out, the residue dried, and the diamonds selected as before.
The
washing establishments of the diamond in Brazil, particularly in the
celebrated district Tejuco, on the Rio San Francisco and its adjoining
smaller rivers, are conducted in the following manner:
In order to get at the bottom, or soil of the river, means
