The Sunday herald and weekly national intelligencer., 1890-06-22

and Precious Stones of North America" 1t is
the first considerable work on precious stones
which has given so much attention to and shed
so much light upon the gems of our own coun-
try-both those that have been found here and
those that have been brought here. Diamonds
and other gems have been found at times in
North Carolina, Virginia, and other States of
the Union, but it is quite evident from what Mr..
Kunz says that If our statesmen should put an
absolutely prOhibtory tariff on foreign dia-
monds it would still be long time before the
diamonds from American mines would make
much show in society. All the great diamonds
of the world were found in India, Borneo, Bur
nah, Brazil or South Africa, and none of them
have yet found their way to the United States.
From the time of Noah to that of Tavernier
India was the place to find diamonds The
mines of Golconda were as rich in diamonds as
fable says the sands of Pactolus were in gold.
But the diamond fields of India seem to have
played out about Tavernier's time. Then Brazil
was the place. About the time of the American
Revolution acknowledging began to flourish
in Brazil, but for the last twenty or thirty years
Brazil has been getting out of the business and
South Africa has been supplying diamonds to
the great world.
The great diamonds that readers have read
about might be classified in many ways. One
useful division would be into the rough and the
cut. They might be classified as ancient and
modern; as Indian, Brazilian, or South African
in origin; as European or Oriental, according to
present ownership; as crown diamonds or dta-
monds which belong to private individuals; as
pure white or blue, which are superior to the
yellow straw color: red or green tinted, which
are more precious than even the white; cut in
the old rose fashion or in the more modern style
as brlliants; but the classification which would
probably do the most good would be the classi
tication which would separate those that
diamonds from those that are not, and those
that have real existence from those that have
no existence at all.
There are grave uncertainties about nearly all
the great diamonds of the world, and the
gravest uncertainty of all is about the very dia
mond which usually stands at the head of the
| list That diamond is the Braganza, and the
only doubt about it is whether it is diamond
at all. The fact that such doubt should still
exist shows how arbitrary and unreliable the
whole history of diamonds is.
How is the value of diamond to be ascer
tanned! Circumstances have good deal to do
with that with the determination of the
| market value of any other commodity: but the
method laid down by Tavernier many years ago
for determining the relative values of diamonds
equal in quality but different in size is still very
| generally followed. The market value of one
| carat diamond being settled, and the value of
larger diamond having to be ascertained, Taver-
nier's method was to square the number of
carats in the larger diamond and multiply the
product by the value of the one-carat stone.
| Thus half a carat in large stone would be
worth more than dozens of single-carat dia-
. monds. Then quality is an important factor in
the price of diamond. Only an expert, for in
stance, can tell whether diamond should be
classed as ''good' or ''fne, yet the one may be
worth from $50 to $3.50 carat more than the
| other, even in small stones
| During the past six months in newspaper ar
tcles devoted specially to the great diamonds
have seen not less than dozen named each as
| the largest diamond in the world, and the worst
of it is that the absurd and erroneous state
ments have often been backed up by the name
of some diamond expert who might be sup
posed to know whereof he spoke Forinstance,
Charles Cook, managing partner of Tiffany IL
Co., was recently quoted in prominent publi-
cation saying: 1.-The largest perfect diamond
in the world is the Imperial, valued at million
dollars. 1t is an African stone. South Africa
is at present the worlds diamond supply depot
The weight of the Imperial-1S0 carats-is the
greatest known weight of any cut diamond in
the world.' Mr.. Cook must know that there
are several cut diamonds which weigh more
than $50 carats That is the weight of the I'm
perial after cutting and it is South African
stone. 1t is the only one added to the great
diamonds of the world since Streeter published
in 1882 the fullest, and, with all its faults, the
most satisfactory account of the great diamonds
of the world yet put into book form The I'm
peria, so named by the Prince of Wales, was
one of many famous diamonds exhibited at the
Paris Exposition last year. 1t is owned by a
London syndicate, whohaye put it on the market
at the price of a million dollars.
Here is brief account of the most famous
diamonds in existence, carefully prepared from
the information contained in all the most reli-
=. able books on the subject:
THE BRAGANZA
weighs it is said, $50 carats, and is the size of
a goose's egg. 1t is owned by the Portuguese
government, and nobody is ever allowed to see
it. Hence the experts and connoisseurs of the
world doubt its genuineness. The value of this
stone, supposng it to be a good diamond, has
been variously estimated at from S25,000,000 to
81 800, 900 000 If only white topaz, las some peo-
pie allege, it would not be worth more than $40
or S15. 1t was found about 1897 in rvulet in
Brazil by three outlawed criminals, who pur-
chased the remission of their sentences by hand
ing the stone over to the governor. 1t is still
uncut. A diamond of this size would probably
lose about two-thirds of its weight in cutting.
This, however, would still leave it $50 carats,
just twice the size of the Great Mogul, which is
put down as the largest cut diamond in the
world. AT the very best no calculation can be
made upon rough diamond with any certainty.
In the process of cutting unexpected flaws may
appear, and the stone may go to pieces, so that
the best rough diamonds cannot be properly
listed with those that have already stood the test
of cutting. The BraganZa is probably not a
diamond at all. If it were genuine the Portu-
guese government at this time of day could have
no object in Withholding the proof and in refus-
ing all opportunity to remove existing doubt.
The Braganza should be wiped off the list of
diamonds which are actual facts.
To BE Continued
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