DIAMOND 



1786 



DIAMOND 



pretty pebble picked up from the bed of the 

 Vaal stream by the children of a Boer farmer. 

 This stone was afterwards sold in Paris for 

 $2,500, and eventually led to the discovery of 

 the rich diamond fields of South Africa. These 

 mines at present yield ninety-eight per cent 

 of the total yearly product of diamonds, and 

 the total value of the stones obtained since 

 the opening of the mines amounted to more 

 than $700,000,000 in 1916. The stones are both 

 washed from river gravel and mined out of the 

 earth. The miners and their families live, 

 voluntary prisoners, within great enclosures 

 called "compounds," to reduce to a minimum 

 the theft of valuable stones. 



Diamonds have been found in the United 

 States (particularly in Arkansas), British 



the Brazilian stones is the Star oj the South. 

 Many valuations have been placed upon these 

 wonderful gems, but there is no means of 

 valuing them correctly; not one is listed at 

 less than half a million dollars, though no 

 offer of many times such a sum would probably 

 be given the slightest consideration. 



The largest stone ever discovered of which 

 there is any record, three times the size of 

 the largest then known, was found January 26, 

 1905, in the Premier, mine of South Africa. It 

 was called the Cullinan diamond, from the 

 name of its finder, and was purchased by the 

 Transvaal government and presented to King 

 Edward VII of England. It was sent to Am- 

 sterdam to be cut, and was divided into nine 

 large stones, two of them among the largest 



ACTUAL, SIZE DIAMOND CHART FOR JUDGING STONES 



Guiana, Russia, China, Sumatra and Australia, 

 but in comparatively small quantities. 



Famous Diamonds. Very large diamonds of 

 rare quality are almost without exception the 

 property of states and royal personages. The 

 largest Golconda diamond, called the Great 

 Mogul, was once in the possession of Shah 

 Jehan, builder of the famous Taj Mahal (which 

 see). The Orloff, a magnificent Russian crown 

 jewel, bought by Prince Orloff for the Empress 

 Catharine II, is said to have been stolen from 

 the eye of an idol in a Brahman temple. From 

 the first thief it was acquired by a second, and 

 by him sold to the Prince. The Kohinoor, now 

 in possession of the royal family of England, 

 was for many centuries handed down from one 

 Indian prince to another. It was taken when 

 the British invaded the Punjab and presented 

 by the East Indian Company to Queen Vic- 

 toria in 1850. The Regent, or Pitt, diamond, is 

 an Indian gem, one of the most beautiful of the 

 large stones, and is owned by France and ex- 

 hibited in the Louvre. The most famous of 



brilliants in existence, and into a number of 

 small stones. 



How to Judge Diamonds. Weight, purity 

 and color are three essential points to consider 

 in buying a diamond. The accompanying dia- 

 gram shows the weight in carats of diamonds 

 from 1.5 to 10 millimeters in diameter. In re- 

 gard to purity, these gems are subject to three 

 kinds of flaws : the presence of foreign minerals, 

 gas- or moisture-pores, and small fissures called 

 feathers. Specks of coal and graphite are the 

 most common flaws of the first class. These 

 are known as sand when they can be seen by 

 the naked eye, and dust when they are micro- 

 scopic. Sometimes they appear in streaks or 

 silky layers, and sometimes they form clouds 

 that diminish the transparency of the stone 

 and impair its color. Gas- or moisture-pores 

 often give the interior of the stone a porous 

 appearance, and they also give rise to clouding. 



In purchasing a diamond the buyer should 

 always use a ten- or twenty-power microscope, 

 to make sure that he is getting a stone as 



