Some Notes on Ancient Ideas concerning the Diamond. 
309 
assertion that a diamond in his own possession had been so rolled and 
worn that not a single piece of its natural crystal surface remained has 
not deterred high living authorities from stating that diamond is seldom 
found " water worn." 
But is there not just a possibility that Pliny's assertion was founded on 
something more tangible than a mere confusion of the properties of hard- 
ness and toughness ? Apart from the well-known fact that diamond would 
cut iron, is it not a fair guess that some ancient lapidary might have put a 
diamond into a vice, and so found that the iron might crush, but still suffer 
somewhat from, the stone ? 
Sir William Crookes, in the course of his magnificent lecture before the 
British Association in Kimberley in 1905, performed the experiment of 
squeezing a diamond into steel. Under the great hydraulic pressure 
employed (60 atmospheres) the diamond was seen, projected on the screen, 
to sink into the steel as if that were no more than butter.* While no ancient 
craftsman could have commanded the same power, it is significant that 
" Muhammed Ibn Mansur, who wrote a treatise on mineralogy in Persian 
during the thirteenth century, says, regarding this point, ' On the anvil the 
diamond is not broken under the hammer, but rather penetrates into the anvil.' " 
Concerning the Chinese account that diamonds are fished from the 
ocean, the author comments that is an old Indian fable ; and in a footnote 
he adds that the Hindu mineralogists also entertain the notion that diamond 
floats on water. Yet, while the fable does confound pearls with diamonds, 
it is fairly certain that diamonds could be fished from the Atlantic off the 
coast of South-West Africa if the game were worth the candle. More- 
over quite large fragments of diamond will float provided that their spread 
is great enough compared with their thickness. It is a simple and a very 
pretty experiment to float a flake of diamond on water, and then, glancing 
along the surface of the water, to see that the whole of the diamond is 
much below the general level — hanging suspended, as it were, in a bag from 
the surface. 
I gather that the author favours an astrological signification for the 
blood and the ram's horn part of the stories. As in Cower : 
" The sterre ellefthe is Venenas 
The Avhos nature is, as it Avas, 
Take of Venus and of the Mone 
In thing which he hath forto done. 
Of Adamant is that perrie 
In which he worcheth his maistrie."t 
But the handles of some of the lapidary's tools might have been of horn. 
* This diamond, deeply embedded in the steel, is still preserved in the sorting 
office of the De Beers Company. The experiment may be imitated, more or less 
successfully, with an office letter-press. 
t ' Confessio Amantis,' Bk. VII. 
