them and they fly away from the meat. The merchants then advance to that meat, and take from it the stones sticking to it: after which they leave the meat for the birds and the wild beasts and carry the stones to their countries. And no one can procure the stones but by means of this stratagem.” In his notes and comments on this passage, Mr. Lane says: "Though I believe that there is no known substance with which the diamond can be cut or ground except its own substance, I think it not improbable that the Eastern lapidaries may be acquainted with some ore, really—or supposed by them to be—an ore of lead, by which it may be broken, and that this is what is here called “the lead stone” or “the stone of lead.” It is well known that those diamonds unfit for any other purpose than that of cutting or grinding others, are broken in a steel “mortar.” In further notes on “The Valley of Diamonds,” Mr. Lane added the following: “El-Kaz-weenee after describing the diamond, saying ‘It breaketh all other stones except that of lead (el-usrub, a bad kind of lead): for if it be struck with this the diamond breaketh,’”—relates as follows: “To the place in which the diamond is found no one can gain access. It is a valley in the land of India, the bottom of which the sight reacheth not: and in it are venomous serpents which no one seeth but he dieth: and they have a summer abode for six months, and a winter abode (where they hide themselves) for the like period. El-Iskender (either Alexander the Great or the first Zu-l-Karneyn) commanded his men to take some mirrors and to throw them into the Valley that the serpents might see in them their forms and die in consequence. It is said also that he watched for the time of their absenting themselves (or retiring into their winter quarters) and threw down pieces of meat, and diamonds stuck to these: then the birds came from the sky and took pieces of that meat, and brought them up out of the valley whereupon El-Iskender ordered his companions to follow the birds and to pick up what they easily could of the meat.” The valley or valleys of diamonds we also find described by other writers, among them Marco Polo, in his account of the Kingdom of Murphili or Monsul. Mr. Marsden observes: “This is no other than Muchli-patan or, as it is more commonly named, Masuli-patam: the name of a principal town by a mistake not unusual, being substituted for that of the country.... It belongs to what was at one period termed the Kingdom of Golconda, more anciently named Teligana. Golconda, of which Masulipatam is the principal seaport, is celebrated for the production of diamonds.” In the astronomical observations of Mr. Topping, printed in Dalrymple’s Oriental Repertory, mention is made of the famous diamond mines of Golconda at a place named Malvellee, not far from Ellore. Caesar Fredericke who was at Bijanagar in 1567 mentions that the diamond mines were six days’ journey from that city.