The Occurrence and Distribution of Diamonds in India. 587 
“This diamond stratum extends more than 20 kilometres to the 
north-east of Pannah. The most important diggings are those of the 
capital of Myra, Etawa, Kamariya, Brijpur and Baraghari, The 
mean annual produce ranges between £40,000 and £60,000, a trifling 
sum, as the stones.are the most prized in the world and sell for a high 
price in the country. 
“They are pure and full of fire; the colour varies from the purest 
white to black with the intermediate shades milky, rose, yellow, green, 
and brown. Some have been found reaching twenty carats, and the Myra 
mine yielded one of eighty-three which belonged to the crown jewels of the 
Mogul. Of course the real produce must be taken at double the official 
estimate. Despite all precautions such is the case everywhere. The Rajah 
has established an approximate average amount, and when this descends 
too low he seizes one of the supposed defaulters and beheads him or 
confiscates his goods. 
** He sells his diamonds directly to Allahabad or Benares and of late 
years he has established afeliers for cutting ; these are the usual kind— 
horizontal wheels of steel worked by the foot.” 
ON THE PROSPECTS OF DIAMOND MINING IN INDIA BY EUROPEANS, 
As I have already related in each of the three great tracts at 
Chennur, at Sambalpur, and at Panna, attempts have been made 
by Europeans to mine for diamonds, but in no instance have their 
operations proved to be successful. How far success was deserved 
by the manner in which the operations were carried on, it is im- 
possible to state. Regarding the question, however, from a 
general point of view, I think it is easy to see that there are 
many causes which must tend to have an unfavourable effect 
upon the success of undertakings of this nature. | 
In the first place, however, it may be well to premise that there 
is not the least ground for supposing that there has been any real 
exhaustion of the localities where mining is possible. On the con- 
trary the result of the systematic geological examination of the 
different areas, has been to show that the diamond-bearing strata 
have a wider extension there than the actual miners could have 
ever supposed—though not so wide as some writers like Captain 
Burton have concluded, by a process of including the most distant 
localities in one tract, and then computing the total area. 
That the ancient miners possessed and acted on a kind of rule 
of thumb knowledge of the characteristics of the diamond- 
bearing strata in different tracts respectively, is almost certain; 
but that they applied such knowledge inductively to distant 
