Ball — A Qeologisfs Contribution to the Kistory of India. Ill 



occupation, according to native report, to 30,000 persons, a large 

 proportion of whom were engaged in baling out the mines bj 

 hand — a tedious operation still practised in some parts of India. 

 The mines were farmed out by the king for a sum of 300,000 

 pagodas, but he reserved' to himself all stones of above 10 carats 

 weight. In 1622 the mines were temporarily closed, owing to an 

 ambassador from the Grreat Mogul having demanded a tribute of 

 3 lbs. weight of the finest diamonds. The locality was situated on 

 the Kistna river, and was probably identical with the Grani or 

 Coulour of Tavernier, the exact position of which has only re- 

 cently been satisfactorily fixed as being identical with the modern 

 KoUur. 



Lord. — In the year 1630, a clergyman named Henry Lord, who 

 was attached"to the English establishment in Western India, published 

 a curious pamphlet, entitled The Discovery of the Banian [i. e. Brah- 

 min) religion. In it he gives an account of the Brahmins' ideas as 

 to the first discovery of diamonds. It is attributed by them to the 

 first progenitor of the Sudras or lowest caste of Hindus. Now the 

 diamond miners throughout India, with rare exceptions, so far as I 

 have been able to ascertain, still belong, and have always belonged, 

 either to the Sudras or the aboriginal tribes, with whom they are much 

 mixed up. This fact I hold to be of much importance in connexion 

 with the explanation which I have offered of the origin of the 

 diamond mining fable in connexion with the accounts of it given 

 by Marco Polo and Nicolo Conte. 



Tavernier (1665-1669). — In the accounts of his several 

 journeys in India, Tavernier has given us a considerable amount 

 of information', the value of which is, however, affected by the 

 fact that these accounts contain a number of internal inconsist- 

 encies which it is impossible to reconcile with one another. 



Diamonds. — Upon this subject the old jeweller naturally dis- 

 courses at length : as, however, I have already quoted his facts in 

 a former Paper,^ I shall only here mention that the diamond mines 

 at Eaolconda, Grani or Colour, and Soumelpour have been identified 

 by me "" with the modern localities, Eamulkota, KoUur, and a spot 

 on the Koel river in the district of Palamow in Bengal. Another 



1 These Proceedings, for 1880. 

 "^ Economic Geology of India. 



