A CHAPTER ON DIAMONDS.

Globe, Volume XX, Issue 1529, 11 January 1879, Page 3

A CHAPTER ON DIAMONDS.

[“Standard.”] Captain Jones, of the Dutoitspan (Cape of Good Hope) Diamond Fields, is, or ought to be, a happy man. Fortunate he certainly is. Upon his claim has been picked up a diamond weighing no less than two hundred and fortyfour carats, or a third the size of the Kohinoor. It is true that the “ water ” of this wonderful gem is said not to be of the very first quality. Xu this respect all African diamonds are, unfortunately, somewhat deficient. Captain Jones’s stone is, it seems, of a light “ off color.” It is, that is to say, slightly yellow. But it is free from any trace of flaw, and the experts who have sat in judgment on it pronounce that it will “cut full,” or, in other words, that the waste in the process of transforming it into a brilliant will be comparatively small. This, of course, makes a very considerable difference in the value of the stone in its rough state. The Kohinoor in cutting lost more than two-thirds of its weight. When rough it turned nine hundred carats ; it now weighs only two hundred and seventy-nine. Should the Jones diamond--as it will probably for some time be called— lose only half its weight under the lapidaries’ hands, it will weigh one hundred and twenty-two carats, and will bo nearly half the size of the Kohinoor. Anyhow it will, at least, rival the famous Band diamond, and Captain Jones will, no doubt, find an admirable market lor it in San Francisco, where Bonanza King?, Pacific Coast bankers, and gentlemen who hare struck oil have so much more money than they can spend that (hey encourage ; their wives to purchase jewels each against the other, until —oven when allowance is made for Transatlantic hyperbole -there must bo two or three ladies, at least, iu the great City of the West the contents of whose private jewel case would not contrast unfavourably with tho English Regalia. But o»sj thing alone is wanting to complete Cap--1 i*.m Jones’s happiness, iih cup is not Solutely fall to the br*Di. ia.£?a 1103 ?■ ■. before this, one etono fo.qnd bcci,, - t Nitoilspan larger than his own. mi f nous Spalding diamond pmked up • f v _• v digging some three years ago, vn-Mhed two Wred and eighty-eight and a half carat? an d WIBS consequently, gbout u third 'larger thud 1 Captain Jones’s The difference, how w net very great and if the smnli er of the U'o ciff s as luil as is expected, it may J« ds hnal shape eclipse even v. he Spalding it. B cJt. It is strung*' how very few large damends there aro know.i in the world. There arc non twenty of eminence, and certainly not two hundred of any .note- iJjajjauza, in tno

collection of the Emperor of Brazil, weighs ns nearly as may be twelve ounces, but it. has never been cut, and experts are unanimous in pronouncing it, to bo not a diamond at all. but simply a while topaz of more than usual size and brilliancy. The largest diamond in the world as to the genuineness of which there is no shadow of doubt is that of the jßijili of Mittan, which is about a third larger than the Kohinoor, and for which many years ago the Rajah was offered a couple of war brigs tally equipped, and halt a million of dollars. The tempting bid was refused, on the ground that the etono was lucky, and bound up with the fortunes of the Rajah’s dynasty. The Kohinoor, which comes next in rank, has a less fortunate reputation. According to General Fyi.che, the Kohinoor was first discovered in the seventeenth century by a peasant near Golconda. It was taken from him by a Rajah, from whom it was again extorted by Aurungzebe. Nadir Shah, who took it away from Delhi with other loot amounting in all to £160,000,000, was soon after assassinated. Shahrookh Miza, its next owner, resigned it under anything but gentle compulsion to Shah Dourani, the founder of the Afghan dynasty. Dourani, and after him his son and successor Tymoor, kept it safely. But Zuman, to whom it came by succession, was tortured by his brother Dost Mahomed, who knew Zuman had hidden the gem somewhere, and wanted it for himself. Zuman stood the torture, and confided the secret of the stone’s hiding-place to his brother Shoojah. Shoojah, escaping with it, fell into the hands of Runjeot, who, by the persuasive powers of slow starvation, prevailed upon the unlucky young Prince to give the precious gem up. From Runjcet Singh’s successor we in our turn took it in 1849, together with the other crown jewels of the Punjab. Certainly the stone has hitherto brought anything but fortune to the greater number of if a owners. The Hindoos, General Eytche tells us, firmly believe it to bo most unlucky, and to bring certain ruin upon those into whose hands it comes. The Mogul dynasty, they remind us, degenerated From the day it passed into the possession of Aurungzebe. The diamond brought with it the same ill fate to the race of Eunjeet Singh, The wily old Punjabee, thinking to avert the evil spell from his house, bequeathed the “mountain of light” to the temple of Juggernath, bub his successors refused to surrender it. “ Within a few years,” General Eytche adds, “ after it came into our possession the Sepoy revolt broke out, and more evils connected with it are said by the natives of India to bo still in store for us.” “ Absit Omen !” Are we to throw the Kohinoor into the sea that, like the ring of Polycrates, it may return to us ? Besides, diamonds are not always thus unfortunate. The S inci, it is true, has had a chequered history, and at least two of its possessors, notably Charles the Rash of Burgundy, from whose corpse it was taken by a soldier at Nancy—have met a violent death while it was actually about them. But the Pitt diamond brought no bad fortune with it, unless we are to to believe that it cost the House of Orleans its Throne, and the First Napoleon the battle of Waterloo. Nor is there any reason to suppose that the modest fortune which the Jones diamond will bring with it (o its lucky finder need prove any other than a blessing. From time immemorial there have been all kinds of strange superstitions about precious stones. Most of these— possibly owing to its greater rarity and value—have attached themselves to the diamond. Some diamonds are lucky, others bring misfortune with them. The old story was that the owner of an “adamant” was, as the derivation of the word sufficiently shows, “invincible,” “Si vis vincere hoates,” runs the text of the quaint treatise of Albertus Magnus, “de Virlutibus Herbarurn atquo Lapidum ” —“Si via vincere hastes, accipe lapidem qui a lamas vocatur.” This is all very well. But. how if two combatants have each a diamond of equal size P Besides, Albertus Magnus is also able to assure us that the owner of a sprig of Coral can never be drowned, and that an uncut amethyst is an infallible preventive against intoxication. Fancies such as these are best left to the ingenious author of “the Moonstone.” More curious it is to ask ourselves what will be the result should some chemical Edison discover for us the secret of making the diamond. The thing is to he done. Lapis-lazuli, once worth its weight in gold, can now be manufactured by the ton. At m y moment wo may find ourselves able to convert the refuse of coal-tar into quinine, water into an available fuel, and possibly even—as the alchemists used to dream—lead into gold; from which it certainly differs far less than do. B rough iron ore from Whitworth compressed steel. The manufacture of diamonds would mark a now stage in civilisation. In the first place we should get rid of a strange old bundle of superstitions, What becomes of the ill-luck of the Kohinoor, if we can have made to onr order a brilliant as large as a pumpkin ? And then, too, the diamond is beautiful in itself. Lot us only fancy a pantomime or ballet with each coryphee like a prima donna on a Royal night. la the ago that has given us the electric light, the phonograph, and the spectroscope powerless to make for us so simple a a chemical object as a crystal of pure carbon P We can burn the Kohinoor in oxygon, and convert it into carbonic acid and water. Why should we not begin at the other end of the process, and transmute the contents of a soda water bottle into a brilliant ? For chemists as for engineers the word “impossible” ought to be meaningless. Lot Captain Jones take heart of courage, and enjoy his fortune while ho may, in the assured hope that, long before his brilliant brings with it any ill fate upon his successors or its owners, diamonds will be as plentiful as now aro cornelians or blood-stones, and fully as harmless to those who carry them.