Acquaintance of the Ancients with the Diamond 43 



accordingly, the adamas of the Greeks and Romans be the diamond, 

 the continuity of Western and Eastern traditions renders it plain that 

 the Chinese stone kin-kang must be exactly the same; if, however, 

 adamas should denote another stone, the claim for kin-kang as the 

 diamond must lose its force. Eminent archaeologists like Lessing, 

 Krause, Blumner, and Babelon, have championed the view that Pliny's 

 adamas is our diamond. 1 The opposition chiefly came from the camp 

 of mineralogists. E. S. Dana 2 remarked upon the word adamas, 

 "This name was applied by the ancients to several minerals differing 

 much in their physical properties. A few of these are quartz, specular 

 iron ore, emery, and other substances of rather high degrees of hardness, 

 which cannot now be identified. It is doubtful whether Pliny had any 

 acquaintance with the real diamond." This rather sweeping statement 

 does not testify to a sound interpretation of Pliny's text. A recent 

 author asserts, 8 "It is more than doubtful if the true diamond was 

 known to the ancients. The consensus of the best opinions is that the 

 adamas was a variety of corundum, probably our white sapphire." 

 Let us now examine what the foundation of these "best opinions" is. 



The very first sentence with which Pliny opens his discussion of 

 adamas is apt to refute these peremptory assertions : "The greatest value 

 among the objects of human property, not merely among precious 

 stones, is due to the adamas, for a long time known only to kings, and 

 even to very few of these." 4 The most highly prized and valued of all 

 antique gems, the "joy of opulence," 6 should be quartz, specular iron 

 ore, emery, and other substances which cannot now be identified! 

 The ancients were not so narrow-minded that almost any stone picked 

 up anywhere in nature could have been regarded as their precious 

 stone foremost in the scale of valuation. If the peoples of India like- 

 wise regarded the diamond as the first of the jewels, if their treatises on 

 mineralogy assign to it the first place, 6 and if Pliny is familiar with the 



1 Also so eminent an historian of natural sciences as E. O. von Lippmann 

 (Abhandlungen und Vortrage, Vol. I, p. 9) grants to Pliny a knowledge of the 

 diamond. 



* System of Mineralogy, p. 3, 1850. In the new edition of 1893 this passage has 

 been omitted; the first distinct mention of the diamond is ascribed to Manilius (!), 

 and Pliny's adamas is allowed to be the diamond in part. 



* D. Osborne, Engraved Gems, p. 271 (New York, 1912). 



4 Maximum in rebus humanis, non solum inter gemmas, pretium habet adamas, 

 diu non nisi regibus et iis admodum paucis cognitus (xxxvn, 15, § 55; again 78, 

 § 204). 



6 Opum gaudium (Pliny, procemium of Lib. xx). 



* L. Finot, Lapidaires indiens, p. xxiv. Buddhabhat^a {ibid., p. 6) says, "Owing 

 to the great virtue attributed by the sages to the diamond, it must be studied in the 



