35 § 
The Nizam Diamond. 
[July. 
his diamonds direftly to Allahabad and Benares, and of late 
years he has established ateliers for cutting, fitted with 
horizontal wheels of steel worked by the foot. 
Evidently here we have a primitive style, which has not 
varied since diamond-working began. Good pumps are re- 
quired to drain the wet pits. Instead of sinking a succession 
of shafts, tunnels should be run along the veins of diamond- 
bearing rocks. Magnifying glasses and European superin- 
tendence would improve the washing. Evidently the yield 
would double in the hands of Brazilians or South-Africans. 
The precious stone is still brought for sale from the nearer 
valley of the Krishna to Haydarabad : it occurs, I was 
assured, in a whitish conglomerate of lime locally called 
Gar-ka-pathar, which must be broken up and washed. 
During my week’s visit I was consulted by two Parsee mer- 
chants concerning the rudimentary tests of scratching and 
specific gravity. In fadt, at Golconda, where the finest 
gems used to be worked, no one, strange to say, can now 
recognise a rough diamond. 
In the “ Highlands of the Brazil ” (ii., 113) I have given 
a detailed list of the various stones associated with the gem, 
and specimens of the Cascalho or diamond gravel, the Taua, 
the Canga, &c., have been sent to the Royal Society of 
Edinburgh by Mr. Swinton. It is advisable to remark that 
this association has everywhere been recognised. In Borneo 
we are told that “ the diamond is known by the presence of 
sundry small flints.” The gem-yielding pebble-conglomerate 
of India, not usually a breccia, as was proved by Franklin 
Newbold and Aytoun ( loc . cit., p. 386), contains quartz and 
various quartzose formations ; garnet, corundum, epidote 
and Lydian stone ; chalcedony and cornelian ; jasper, of 
red, brown, bluish, and black hues ; and hornstone, a kind 
of felspar, whilst “ green quartz indicates the presence of 
the best stones.” Fossil chert is yielded by the limestone, 
and the highly ferruginous and crystalline sandstone pro- 
duces micaceous iron ores, small globular stones (pisoliths ?), 
and almost invariably fragments of iron oxide. Finally, 
there are generally traces of gold, and sometimes of plati- 
num. At Haydarabad I was assured that such was the case 
on the Krishna River, but none of my informants had any 
personal knowledge of washing. Dr. Carter’s “ Geological 
Papers ” convinced me that the sandstones of the diamond 
area will be found to resemble the “ Itacolumite,” quartzose 
mica slate or laminated granular quartz, of Brazilian 
“ Minas Geraes.” 
These considerations persuade me that diamond-digging 
