Diamonds in India - Part II

Kurnool District: A conglomerate bed about ten meters thick is found here. Diamonds occurred and still appear in the layers of this bed as small blue, green or yellow grains. The old kingdoms of Bijapur and Golconda had 38 diamond mines close to the Krishna river and other mines have also been reported by travelers. In general the mines were located in alluvium or river gravel, sedimentary rocks or archean crystalline rocks. The other areas where stones were found after rain were near the Banganapalle conglomerates. The layers were mines by sinking shafts of about 3-5 meters depth with galleries going along the seam. However, these diamonds were of poor quality being colored small and highly flowed.

Mines at Komarulu and Dhone have produced diamonds of medium quality but on the other hand the Lanjapolur stones were of a better grade. However the mines generated no revenue since 1813. These mines at Ramallakota and Varakaru produced stones of excellent quality, though of very small size. According to Tavernier, these stones were extracted from sand or the surrounding earth that occupied narrow veins in the rock. Near Virayapalle the diamonds yield was incredibly large, one carat of flawless and well formed gemstones from seven tones of ore. But since 1910 there has apparently been no output or even mining operations in this area.

Guntur District: the largest mining operations were at Kollur and the location of this mine was referred to by Tavernier as “color” and sometimes as Quolore. In 1645 it employed nearly sixty-thousand persons in very productive mining operations. Three decade later, the tract appeared to have been exhausted and it is now deserted. Legend has it that the Kohinoor or the great Mogul was found here.

Krishna District: The mines at Partiala, north-west of Vijayawada, yielded mainly yellowish or reddish colored diamonds in gravel some ten meters below the surface. The description by Scott Tallies with the procedures described by Tavernier at Kollur except for the curious fact that at Partiala, women were not allowed near the mines. Contemporary accounts state that the famous pit diamond came from one of these mines. The Kodavatakallu mines between the Muniair and the Krishna rivers produced several bullock cart loads of diamonds according to local lore.

Bengal: The Ain-i-Akbari refers to a diamond mines near Hirpah in Burdwasdistrict but this is now discounted for lack of confirmation.

Bihar: The ancient work, Tuzuk-i-Jahangiri mentions a diamond field near the source of the Sunk river, south of the watershed of the Koel river in Ranchi district. However, no stones of any value have been found here in recent times. Tavernier refers to the Soumelapur mines close to the village of Simh in Palamau district, where the sands of the Koel river were prospected for diamonds and where large stones were occasionally found.

Madhya Pradesh: Abdul Fazal mentions the mines at Wairagarh. By 1827 these very productive mines were exhausted and by 1843 the abandoned workings were barely visible. Lying between the Panna shale and the upper kaimur sandstone, the diamond containing layer in Panna district is a conglomerate of about 2m thickness. Diamonds occur in the joints and bedding plains of the kaimur sandstones rocks or in the alluvial cover. North-East of Itwa the bed is localized, where reports have it that diamonds are found in the Majhgawan area occur in a volcanic neck filled with agglomerate tuff. The soft and very friable volcanic rock in which diamonds occur is yellow to yellowish green and is a 100km long and about 20km wide. This volcanic pipe is opined to be the main source of diamonds and other such volcanic pipes are thought to exist in the area. Mining in the Panna fields is done by agriculturists between February and June, with claims of 10sqm each. The prospects for diamond mining were reported to be good in 1954, but nothing further was done. The Panna mines are now the only visible Indian source of diamonds for industrial and gem varieties. The production was about 5% lower in 1971 than in the previous year. The total reserves of diamonds are estimated to be 410000 carats in these regions.

Baraunda: Diamonds were once plentiful in this area on the north bank of the Chahala river, but mining ceased after a find of 12-24 stones of which one weight about 118 carats.

Orissa: The gravel bed of the Ib, a tributary of the Mahanadi river a few miles from Sambalpur as well as other tributaries of the Mahanadi as far up as the Mand river have been dredged successfully for diamonds. Between 1804 and 1818 twenty stones were found of which the largest rough found in 1809, weighed 218 carats. The sands from the streams near Bpndesor in Kalahandi have yielded minute diamonds, but a systematic search for larger stones had not been made.

Since 1926, the Panna diamond mining syndicate, the Mahalakshmi diamond mine works and Charkari mining works were the main companies involved in diamond mining. No serious and systematic surveys were made by these companies to look for diamonds. In 1954 Russian assistance was sought for a plan for modernization that would cost 6 million rupees and handle six thousand to seven thousand tones of ore a day, but this effort seems to have failed. At present, any diamonds that may be found must be handed over to the government of India. The diamond officer in Panna records the weight and characteristics of the stones before they are auctioned. The person who found the stones then gets a reward of one quarter of the sale price. Panna production is presently very small in comparison with world output, but the diamonds are on the average priced higher than those from South Africa.

Diamonds in India - Part I

Diamonds were found only in India before the discovery of the Brazilian deposits. The mining operations in Madhya Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh dateback to the sixth century AD. The mines of Vindhya Pradesh now in the state of Madhya Pradesh, were said to have produced diamonds worth ten thousand dollars during the reign of Akbar the great. The kings of Golconda and Vijayanagar leased out the shallow mines in the seventeenth century on a royalty system and on condition that rough stones weighting over 25 carats be surrendered to the kings for their personal adornments. In 1662AD,
Mthold, Andreas Sorcery and Adolph Thomson reported that the king received $120000 from the mine operators and stones larger than 10 carats were given to the king. According to Tavernier, between 1632 and 1662 AD, Ramallakota and Kollur were the mining centers, the latter being the most productive in 1645. The quality of the stones was so good and the size so large that the east India Company even considered sending remittances to England in the form of diamonds. The Golapalli and Malavalli mines were most productive in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries but by the nineteenth century production had declined. Though mining operations in Panna in Madhya Pradesh was interrupted for some time, in continues to this day.

The Wairagarh mines of Madhya Pradesh become uneconomical in 1829 and were abandoned in 1840 AD. In the seventeenth century, some diamonds were extracted in Bihar and Orissa, though production increased in the eighteenth century; but by the middle of the nineteenth century there was a decline in mining activity here too. In these regions the mining operations were primitive and consisted mainly of sporadic searches in shallow excavations.

The excavated material was soaked in water for a couple of days, sun dried and powdered in wooden pestles and mortars. The resultant grit was then scanned for gemstones.

Geologists have observed pipe rocks in Wajrakarur, once a flourishing mining area fourteen kilometers south of Guntakal as well as in Panna in Madhya
Pradesh, but they have not located the actual neck of the pipe. Close studies of the geological formations of central India indicate clearly the presence of diamonds in three distinct regions of India. The first is close to the rocks of the Kurnool series in Andhra Pradesh and the Vindhyas in the north. In Ananthapur, Bellary, Cuddapah, Kurnool, Krishna and Godavari districs of Andhra Pradesh, the rocks have weathered and farmers have chanced on diamonds when plugging their fields. The source of these alluvial stones has yet not been traced. The second source of alluvial diamonds extends westwards from the Mahanadi valley in the Sambalpur district of Orissa into Madhya Pradesh, with an extension to the north. Diamonds have
also been discovered in an outcrop of conglomerate that extends over an area of one hundred kilometers by 20km in Panna, Charkari, Bijwar, Ajaigarh, Kothi, Pathar Kacchar, Baraunda and Chobapur.

Geologists have reported that diamonds have been found in various locations in India listed below.

Ananthapur District: Diamonds have been extracted from the crystalline rocks near Bodasanipalle, Ganjikuta, Konganapalle, Lattawaram, Mulakalapenta, Pedda Hoturu and in Wajrakarur in the past. About a century ago, a volcanic neck very similar to the diamond bearing matrix of Kimberley in South Africa was discovered. Miners of that time crushed the ore and washed it on small platforms. In 1885, a small mining company tried unsuccessfully to mine the area but it was only in 1941 that the new Wajrakarur Diamond Company Ltd
found two large stones of around 1.8 carats each. Even today diamonds are occasionally found on the surface east of Wajrakarur after a rain storm, though never close to the neck of the pipe rock. Valuable stones are still found occasionally between Guntakal and Gooty in the village of Kanganapalle. In 1935, a cultivator reportedly picked up a diamond weighing about 36 carats and a few months earlier, a diamond weighing 67.4 carats was found and cut to an exceptionally brilliant stone of 24.6 carats.

Bellary District: While there was evidence of lining near the village of Huvinahadagalli, there are no record of actual finds if large stones.

Cuddapah District: There were attempts to mine the alluvium near hennur. It is reputed that large stones were found there but systematic and organized mining proved unprofitable. The stones were obtained from a gravel bed lying about two meters below the surface but the mines were soon abandoned.