may
refer to the gold-washings in the Ural Mountains, true seat in former
ages of the fabulous Arimaspi. There is actually a false Diamond found
plentifully in Siberia, the use of which is interdicted to the Eussian
jewellers under the heaviest penalties, as I have been informed by a
person of that profession, formerly practising at St. Petersburg. It
cannot be distinguished by the eye from the true gem. The ' Periplus of
the Eed Sea ' has merely, " To Barace are brought various and numerous
kinds of lustrous gems, the Adamas, the Hyacinthus, &c,"
but no mention of the actual situation of the mines. All that the
usually well-informed 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,* where the Diamond is produced ; but some
believe it to be gotten in the mines of the Jacut (Ruby)."
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, as a
supplement to Monardes' treatise on the same subject. 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 pardaosf a year to reside permanently at his court. His
account represents in all probability pretty nearly the same state of
things as
