Ball — A Geologisfs Gontrihution to the Historti of India, 95 



conclusion tliat, as' regards the mineral productions, it did not 

 differ materially from that which preceded it in the hands of 

 other nationalities. 



The most important work giving an account of India at about 

 this period is the famous voyage by a Mahomedan traveller, with 

 annotations by another, called Abu Seid al Hassan of Giraf.^ 

 Their account is confirmed by another Arabian called Massoudi, 

 whose universal history bears the fantastic title, Meadows of Grold 

 and Mines of Jewels. 



The effect of this absorption of the trade of the Eed Sea was to 

 deprive the European nations of that highway of commerce, and 

 the requirements of Europe had to be brought to Constantinople 

 from India and China by long and tedious overland journeys, 

 which became especially arduous during the Crusades. This state 

 of things continued till the discovery by the Portuguese in the 

 fifteenth century of the long sea passage round the Cape of Grood 

 Hope. 



From various sources, however, we are enabled to pick up frag- 

 ments of information referring to different centuries included in 

 this interval. Thus a Sanskrit work called the Brhat Sanhita," 

 which, it is believed, was written in the sixth century, contains a 

 very detailed account of diamonds, their varieties, qualities, and 

 attributes. Of especial interest is a list of eight localities where 

 diamonds were found. Most of these I have succeeded in iden- 

 tifying with sites where diamond mines are known to have been 

 worked.^ With regard to some of the localities, however, it is 

 more than doubtful whether they ever produced diamonds. 



The first Englishman who visited India appears to have been 

 Sighelmas, Bishop of Shirburne, who was sent thither, in the year 

 883, by King Alfred, to visit the famous Christian named St. 

 Thomas. This Bishop, we are told, made his journey in comfort, 

 and brought back with him " many splendid exotic gems and 

 spices, such as that country plentifully yielded"* — a fact in itself 

 of no great importance, save that it is a link in the chain. 



1 First translated ia a.d. 1718 into French by M. Renaudot. 

 , "^ Translated by Dr. Kern, Jour. Eoy. Asiatic Society, vol. vii. N.S. 1875, p. 125. 

 ^ Economic Geology of India, p. 2. 



* Recorded by "William of Malmesburie in De Gestis regum Anglorum. Book ij. 

 cap. iv. Vide Hakluyt's Englisli Voyages. 



