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Sec. II, Ch. 7: The Indian Diamond

Sec. II, Ch. 7: The Indian Diamond Page of 366 Sec. II, Ch. 7: The Indian Diamond Text size:minus plus Restore normal size   Mail page  Print this page
126
Indian Diamonds.
at a loss. According to general belief, the Golconda district yielded the great historic Diamonds of India. It must be distinctly understood, however, that no Diamonds have ever been found at Golconda itself. Golconda, the former capital of the district, was simply the commercial centre, where the Diamonds were bought and sold, and at the present day the only representative of the world-famed Golconda, is a deserted fort near Hyderabad.
When Tavernier visited the district in 1669, there were as many as twenty mines at work, but now only two or three are worked by a company. Even the names by which Tavernier knew the mines have become obsolete, and not without difficulty can their situations be identified. The late Prof. Ball in his edition of Tavernier's Travels, published in 1889, entered with much erudition, into a discussion of this subject. The most famous of these, named " Gani " by the natives, but " Colore " by the Persians, gave employment in Tavernier's time, to 60,000 workmen. Ball brought forward strong evidence to show that Tavernier's " Gani Coulour " is identical with the modern town of " Kollur " on the Kistna—the word Gani being equivalent to the Persian Kan-i, or " mine of ; " so that " Gani Coulour " meant simply the " Mine of Coulour," just as " Gani Parteal " is the " Mine of Parteal." Ball also sought to identify Tavernier's famous locality of Raolconda, where the old traveller saw Diamond-cutting carried on in the mine itself, with the town now known as Ramulkota, about twenty miles south of Karnul, where the Diamond occurs in a matrix of pebble-conglomerate belonging to the Karnul series.
The Diamonds found at Gani Coulour were dis­tinguished for their number and size ; but, except in rare instances, they were deficient in purity and clearness.
Sec. II, Ch. 7: The Indian Diamond Page of 366 Sec. II, Ch. 7: The Indian Diamond
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