( 305 ) 
SOME NOTES ON ANCIENT IDEAS CONCERNINa THE 
DIAMOND. 
By J. E. Sutton. 
Scholars have devoted much time to the elucidation of the probably large 
subgtratum of truth that underlies ancient fables and fancies about the 
diamond. And scholars of future ages may perhaps be equally industrious 
in trying to explain the fables and fancies of our own time on the same 
subject. 
One of the most competent of recent discussions of ancient ideas about 
the diamond is Berthold Laufer's ' The Diamond : a Study in Chinese and 
Hellenistic Folk-Lore ' * ; and the following notes are in the nature of a 
running commentary on his work. I say " competent " in an observational 
sense ; the philology is, of course, beyond me. He establishes the curious 
fact that although India was the distributing centre of diamonds to Hellas 
and Romet on the one hand and to China on the other, the ideas conceived 
by the Chinese regarding the diamond do not coincide with those entertained 
in India, but harmonise with those which we find expounded in classical 
literature. 
1. Legend of the Diamond Valley (p. 6). 
This legend is adapted in " Sinbad the Sailor," and is an abridged form 
of a well-known western story, of which the oldest known version is contained 
in the writings of Epiphanius, circa 315-403. The various stories described 
under this head coincide in general in the fable of a deep and inaccessible 
valley whose floor is strewn with diamonds. Flesh is thrown into the valley 
from above ; the diamonds adhere to it ; the eagles hovering about scent the 
flesh, pounce down upon it and carry it to their eyries, where the diamonds 
are recovered — from the droppings, as some writers relate. 
The author gives his opinion that the story originated in the Hellenistic 
Orient, and was probably invented there for the benefit of foreign traders. 
And he regards it as belonging to the same type of legend as that related 
by Herodotus in ' Thalia ' of the manner in which cinnamon was obtained by 
the Arabs. 
* Field Musevim of Natural History. Publication 184, 1915. 
t Dieulafait in 'Diamonds and Precious Stones,' 1874, accepts the tradition that 
" the diamonds earliest known to the Romans were furnished by Ethiopia/' 
27 
