570 Scientific Proceedings, Royal Dublin Society. 
The proposal dazzled me, and I caught at it, without reflecting on 
the difficulties of the march, or on the barbarity of the country, 
&e.” 
In spite of his life being several times in danger from attacks 
by the natives, the loss of some of his followers by fever, and a 
varied chapter of other disasters, Mr. Motte was enabled to collect 
a considerable amount of interesting information about the 
country. Owing to the disturbed state of Sambalpur town, how- 
ever, he was only able to purchase a few diamonds. After much 
prolonged negotiation, he was permitted to visit the junction of 
the Rivers Hebe (Ebe) and Mahanadi, where the diamonds were 
said to be found. A servant of the Raja’s who was in charge 
there, informed him that “it was his business to search in the 
River Hebe, after the rains, for red earth, washed down from the 
mountains, in which earth diamonds were always found. I asked 
him if it would not be better to go to the mountains and dig for 
that earth. He answered that it had been done, until the 
Maharattas exacted a tribute from the country ; and todo so now 
would only increase that tribute. He showed me several heaps 
of the red earth—some pieces, of the size of small pebbles, and so 
on, till it resembles coarse brick-dust—which had been washed 
and the diamonds taken out.”* 
Mr. Voysey on his last journey, from Nagpur to Calcutta in 
1824, visited the diamond washings of Sambalpur. 
He mentioned that the gems were 
“‘ Sought for in the sand and gravel of the river—the latter consisting 
of pebbles of clay slate, flinty slate, jasper, and jaspery iron stone of 
all sizes, from an inch to a foot in diameter.” + 
The next mention of Sambalpur diamonds is to be found in 
Lieutenant Kittoe’s accountt of his journey, in the year 1838, 
through the forests of Orissa. He speaks of the people as being 
too apathetic and indolent to search for diamonds. His remarks 
on the localities where they occur seem to be derived from Mr. 
Motte’s account, to which, indeed, he refers. 
* This description suggests laterite as the matrix from which the diamonds were proxi- 
mately derived. Messrs. Hislop and Hunter vide infra describe the diamonds of Weira- 
gurh, as occurring in laterite gravel, In this connexion it may be noted that one of the 
principal sources of Cape diamonds is said to be a superficial ferruginous conglomerate. 
+ Vide Carter’s Summary of the Geology of India, p. 724. 
t “Journal Asiatic Society, Bengal,” Vol. viii., 1839, p. 375 
