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Adamas, Diamond

Adamas, Diamond Page of 453 Adamas, Diamond Text size:minus plus Restore normal size   Mail page  Print this page
32                                          ADAMAS.
Ural Mountains. There is actually a false Diamond found plen­tifully in Siberia, the use of which is interdicted to the Eussian jewellers under the heaviest penalties. All that the usually well-informed M. Ben Mansur knew of the Indian Diamond Mines was the fable that " in the Eastern part of India there is a deep valley inhabited by serpents,7 where the Diamond is pro­duced ; but some believe it to be found in the mines of the Jacut." The earliest authentic account of them is to be found in the little treatise, ' De Arom. et Simp. Historia,' written in Portu­guese by Garcias ab Horto, in 1565, in the form of dialogues ; a Latin abridgment of which was published by Clusius two years later. This writer had been physician to the Viceroy at Goa, and had occasionally been called in by the Nizam-moluco (ul-Mulk), ruler of the Deccan, who had offered him 40,000 pardaos8 a year to reside permanently at his court. His account repre­sents in all probability pretty nearly the same state of things as when the Roman traders from Alexandria made their annual voyages to Baroche upon that coast. " Diamonds are found in only three or four places. In the province of Bisnagar there are two or three rocks that produce them, which brings in im­mense gain to the king of that country, as every stone above the weight of 30 Mangelis (150 grains) belongs to the sovereign. There is another rock in the Deccan, not far from the territory of the Imadixa (Imad-shah), or Imad-moluco, but within the lands of a certain native prince, which produces excellent Diamonds, though of smaller size. These are the stones known by the name of ' Diamonds of the Old Rock,' and are brought for sale to Lispor, a town of the Deccan, where there is a famous market. The Gazerat merchants buy them there, and bring them to us at
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