Diamonds. 251 



the only blue diamonds of fair size in existence are the 

 historic Hope Diamond, and one which is supposed to be 

 a broken - off portion of the Hope. Before the dis- 

 covery of diamonds in South Africa, the value of a diamond 

 was reckoned to increase according to the square of its 

 weight. Thus, if a white brilliant of one carat was worth 

 £S, a similar one of two carats would have been worth ^"32 ; 

 of three carats, £j2 ; and so on. This enhanced price was 

 due to the extreme rarity of large stones in those days. 

 This scarceness disappeared with the advent of South African 

 diamonds, among which there are so many of a not easily 

 saleable size, that the big ones are often cut into two or more 

 pieces, so that they may be sold separately. As a rule, the 

 public do not care to buy diamonds of a greater weight than 

 four carats. If a diamond exceeds that limit, it will cost too 

 much and will be too obtrusive in appearance for ordinary 

 people. It is altogether a mistaken idea that South Africa 

 does not produce as good diamonds as ever came out of 

 Galconda or Brazil. There is nothing in any high-class 

 white cut diamond to indicate from what country it came. 

 In the majority of cases, an expert can tell not alone from 

 what country, but also from what mine an uncut stone was 

 produced. I may remark that a white uncut stone looks not 

 much unlike a lump of alum which has been subjected to 

 the action of water. 



By the kindness of Captain Wallace I had while at 

 Kimberley several opportunities of visiting the De Beers' sort- 

 ing-room, in which scores of thousands of pounds worth of 

 uncut diamonds were laid out on separate sheets of paper 

 according to their colour and other peculiarities. Their 

 crystalline form, in many cases, was wonderfully perfect, and 

 was specially interesting to a mineralogist. 



