the result of the serpentinization of several such rocks, and although now both brecciated and serpentinized some of these may have been the original matrix. A circumstance often mentioned in support of this view is the fact that the diamonds in one pipe generally differ somewhat in character from those of another, even though they be near neighbours.
History.—All the famous diamonds of antiquity must have been Indian stones. The first author who described the Indian mines at all fully was the Portuguese, Garcia de Orta (1565), who was physician to the viceroy of Goa. Before that time there were only legendary accounts like that of Sindbad’s “Valley of the Diamonds,” or the tale of the stones found in the brains of serpents. V. Ball thinks that the former legend originated in the Indian practice of sacrificing cattle to the evil spirits when a new mine is opened; birds of prey would naturally carry off the flesh, and might give rise to the tale of the eagles carrying diamonds adhering to the meat.
The following are some of the most famous diamonds of the world:—
A large stone found in the Golconda mines and said to have weighed 787 carats in the rough, before being cut by a Venetian lapidary, was seen in the treasury of Aurangzeb in 1665 by Tavernier, who estimated its weight after cutting as 280 (?) carats, and described it as a rounded rose-cut-stone, tall on one side. The name Great Mogul has been frequently applied to this stone. Tavernier states that it was the famous stone given to Shah Jahan by the emir Jumla. The Orloff, stolen by a French soldier from the eye of an idol in a Brahmin temple, stolen again from him by a ship’s captain, was bought by Prince Orloff for £90,000, and given to the empress Catharine II. It weighs 19434 carats, is of a somewhat yellow tinge, and is among the Russian crown jewels. The Koh-i-nor, which was in 1739 in the possession of Nadir Shah, the Persian conqueror, and in 1813 in that of the raja of Lahore, passed into the hands of the East India Company and was by them presented to Queen Victoria in 1850. It then weighed 186116 carats, but was recut in London by Amsterdam workmen, and now weighs 106116 carats. There has been much discussion concerning the possibility of this stone and the Orloff being both fragments of the Great Mogul. The Mogul Baber in his memoirs (1526) relates how in his conquest of India he captured at Agra the great stone weighing 8 mishkals, or 320 ratis, which may be equivalent to about 187 carats. The Koh-i-nor has been identified by some authors with this stone and by others with the stone seen by Tavernier. Tavernier, however, subsequently described and sketched the diamond which he saw as shaped like a bisected egg, quite different therefore from the Koh-i-nor. Nevil Story Maskelyne has shown reason for believing that the stone which Tavernier saw was really the Koh-i-nor and that it is identical with the great diamond of Baber; and that the 280 carats of Tavernier is a misinterpretation on his part of the Indian weights. He suggests that the other and larger diamond of antiquity which was given to Shah Jahan may be one which is now in the treasury of Teheran, and that this is the true Great Mogul which was confused by Tavernier with the one he saw. (See Ball, Appendix I. to Tavernier’s Travels (1889); and Maskelyne, Nature, 1891, 44, p. 555.).
The Regent or Pitt diamond is a magnificent stone found in either India or Borneo; it weighed 410 carats and was bought for £20,400 by Pitt, the governor of Madras; it was subsequently, in 1717, bought for £80,000 (or, according to some authorities, £135,000) by the duke of Orleans, regent of France; it was reduced by cutting to 1361416 carats; was stolen with the other crown jewels during the Revolution, but was recovered and is still in France. The Akbar Shah was originally a stone of 116 carats with Arabic inscriptions engraved upon it; after being cut down to 71 carats it was bought by the gaikwar of Baroda for £35,000. The Nizam, now in the possession of the nizam of Hyderabad, is supposed to weigh 277 carats; but it is only a portion of a stone which is said to have weighed 440 carats before it was broken. The Great Table, a rectangular stone seen by Tavernier in 1642 at Golconda, was found by him to weigh 242316 carats; Maskelyne regards it as identical with the Darya-i-nur, which is also a rectangular stone weighing about 186 carats in the possession of the shah of Persia. Another stone, the Taj-e-mah, belonging to the shah, is a pale rose pear-shaped stone and is said to weigh 146 carats.
Other famous Indian diamonds are the following:—The Sancy, weighing 531216 carats, which is said to have been successively the property of Charles the Bold, de Sancy, Queen Elizabeth, Henrietta Maria, Cardinal Mazarin, Louis XIV.; to have been stolen with the Pitt during the French Revolution; and subsequently to have been the property of the king of Spain, Prince Demidoff and an Indian prince. The Nassak, 7858 carats, the property of the duke of Westminster. The Empress Eugénie, 51 carats, the property of the gaikwar of Baroda. The Pigott, 49 carats(?), which cannot now be traced. The Pasha, 40 carats. The White Saxon, 4834 carats. The Star of Este, 251332 carats.
Coloured Indian diamonds of large size are rare; the most famous are:—a beautiful blue brilliant, 67216 carats, cut from a stone weighing 112316 carats brought to Europe by Tavernier. It was stolen from the French crown jewels with the Regent and was never recovered. The Hope, 4414 carats, has the same colour and is probably a portion of the missing stone: it was so-called as forming part of the collection of H. T. Hope (bought for £18,000), and was sold again in 1906 (resold 1909). Two other blue diamonds are known, weighing 1334 and 134 carats, which may also be portions of the French diamond. The Dresden Green, one of the Saxon crown jewels, 40 carats, has a fine apple-green colour. The Florentine, 13315 carats, one of the Austrian crown jewels, is a very pale yellow.
The most famous Brazilian stones are:—The Star of the South, found in 1853, when it weighed 25412 carats and was sold for £40,000; when cut it weighed 125 carats and was bought by the gaikwar of Baroda for £80,000. Also a diamond belonging to Mr Dresden, 119 carats before, and 7612 carats after cutting.
Many large stones have been found in South Africa; some are yellow but some are as colourless as the best Indian or Brazilian stones. The most famous are the following:—the Star of South Africa, or Dudley, mentioned above, 8312 carats rough, 4612 carats cut. The Stewart, 28838 carats rough, 120 carats cut. Both these were found in the river diggings. The Porter Rhodes from Kimberley, of the finest water, weighed about 150 carats. The Victoria, 180 carats, was cut from an octahedron weighing 45712 carats, and was sold to the nizam of Hyderabad for £400,000. The Tiffany, a magnificent orange-yellow stone, weighs 12512 carats cut. A yellowish octahedron found at De Beers weighed 42812 carats, and yielded a brilliant of 28812 carats. Some of the finest and largest stones have come from the Jagersfontein mine; one, the Jubilee, found in 1895, weighed 640 carats in the rough and 239 carats when cut. Until 1905 the largest known diamond in the world was the Excelsior, found in 1893 at Jagersfontein by a native while loading a truck. It weighed 971 carats, and was ultimately cut into ten stones weighing from 68 to 13 carats. But all previous records were surpassed in 1905 by a magnificent stone more than three times the size of any known diamond, which was found in the yellow ground at the newly discovered Premier mine in the Transvaal. This extraordinary diamond weighed 302534 carats (113 ℔) and was clear and water white; the largest of its surfaces appeared to be a cleavage plane, so that it might be only a portion of a much larger stone. It was known as the Cullinan Diamond. This stone was purchased by the Transvaal government in 1907 and presented to King Edward VII. It was sent to Amsterdam to be cut, and in 1908 was divided into nine large stones and a number of small brilliants. The four largest stones weigh 51612 carats, 309316 carats, 92 carats and 62 carats respectively. Of these the first and second are the largest brilliants in existence. All the stones are flawless and of the finest quality.
Bibliography.—Boetius de Boot, Gemmarum et lapidum historia (1609); D. Jeffries, A Treatise on Diamonds and Pearls (1757); J. Mawe, Travels in the Interior of Brazil (1812); Treatise on Diamonds and Precious Stones (1813): Pinder, De adamante (1829); Murray, Memoir on the Nature of the Diamond (1831); C. Zerenner, De adamante dissertatio (1850); H. Emanuel, Diamonds and Precious Stones (1865); A. Schrauf, Edelsteinkunde (1869); N. Jacobs and N. Chatrian, Monographie du diamant (1880); V. Ball, Geology of India (1881); C. W. King, The Natural History of Precious Stones
