Mineralogy and Geology. 



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stroy them ; but afterwards, — " some time before his death" — he surren- 

 dered some of them, but kept many. After his death these were given to 

 Aurungzebe by his sister Jehanira. Would Shah Jehaun have given to 

 Aurungzebe or would he have retained a diamond, (supposing it to have 

 escaped destruction, in the cutting,) which had been the pr>< e of his in- 

 terference with the affairs of Golconda, and had been perhaps the ulti- 

 mate cause of his son's triumph over him ? Far more probably would he 

 have given him the true Mogul diamond, the proudest jewel of the con- 

 quests of his great ancestor, and that to which Aurungzebe stood indefea- 

 sibly, though by fratricide truly Indian, the unnatural heir. Tavernier 

 saw the jewels of Aurungzebe on Nov. 3, 1665. Shah Jehaun died in 

 February, 1666. Tavernier saw but one very large diamond. The dates 

 agree with the supposition ; and there are not likely to have been two 

 diamonds, one of 320, the other of 319^ ratis. 



It is very difficult to determine the weight of the rati. It is variable 

 in place and time, and, in many places is a conventional weight. The rati 

 is the Abris precatorius or rutka, a little red seed with a black tip to it, 

 which was, like our barleycorn, a standard of weight over all India, which 

 however varied from about 1*86 of a grain up to 2*25 grains ; the coins of 

 Akbar leading to the inference of its weight being nearly 1 '93*75 of a 

 grain. It is obviously useless to multiply so small a number by 120, 

 for we could expect no accurate result, owing to the exaggeration of 

 the error arising from the multiplication of even the smallest mistake in 

 the true weight of the rati in Baber's or Tavernier's time. But the eight 

 mishkals of Baber afford a far more hopeful estimate of the weight of 

 the diamond. This is a Persian weight, and seems to be and to have 

 been far less liable to fluctuation or variety in value at different times or 

 places. The Persian mishkal, or half-dirhem, weighs 74-5 grains troy, 

 and eight of these equal 596 grains, or 187-58 carats.* The Koh-i-Noor 

 in the Exhibition of 1851 weighed 186 carats. This would require a 

 weight of P848 grains for the rati, a number nearly approximating to 

 that given by the coins of Akbar. 



Accepting then the conclusion, that the great diamond which was the 

 spoil of Ala ed Deen in 1306, and had probably been for ages the crown 

 jewel of the independent Rajahs of Malwa, passed to the Mogul conqueror 

 of the Pathan sovereigns, and was so inherited by the Mogul emperors, 

 and was seen in their possession by Tavernier in the reign of Aurungzebe ; 

 Mr. Maskelyne went on to trace its subsequent history. 



It remained at Delhi, until another, the fiercest and the last of the great 

 inroads of Western Tartar peoples,- broke over the hills of Affghanistan, 

 and flooded the plains of North Western India. 



The history of Thamas Kouli Khan, Nadir Shah, is sufficiently near to 

 the present time to fall almost within the field of European contest in In- 

 dia. This conqueror from the west gave back the prostrate empire of 

 India to his Tartar " kinsman" on the throne of Delhi, and exchanged 

 turbans with him, — so says tradition, — in sign of eternal amity. The proud 

 diamond of the Moguls was in the cap of the vassal, and was saluted by 

 the title of Kuh-i-Noor, " Mound of Light" by his suzerain. It went back 



* The carat =3-17 grains Troy weight. 



