The Montgomery advertiser., 1902-03-02
/ A1 A&l&
  New York.
A NEW DIAMOND CUTTING.
Said to Give the Gems Much Greater
 BIilliancy.
New York.

l A new cutting for diamonds known as | the Twentieth century cutting. IS been devised by New York expert ar- | ter seven years of experiment. lt is as- serted that this discovery makes II pos- | sible to Increase greatly the briliia- y | of diamonds, and to gender them bril- | liant from no matter what angle they are viewed. Some idea of the difficulty of the work, says The New York Herald, may be im- agined from the fact that although hun dreds of diamond experts all over the world are always experimenting, more were, up to the discovery of the "Twen- tieth century cuttng," put three stand
 ard diamond cuttings. These are, of course, familiar. They are the rose cut ting" the "cushion cutting and the brilliant cutting" The rose cutting is the oldest of the three, and is still used for very small stones. The diamond cut in his way has rounded appearance, rractically all the really old diamonds have rose cuttings"
 Previous to loao diamonds had what Is known in the trade as "cushion brilliant cutting" This cutting marked great improvement over the old. rose" form. It rendered the diamond much more bril- liant. and utilized more of the stona. In form it was slightly longer than broad, with fiat top or table, with a beveled edge, which was cut with many facets.
 The new brilliant which is now prac- tlcally in universal use, was introduced in 1875. It was great improvement upon the cushion form, since 1t gave the cipal disadvantage was. however, that 1t wasted more of the stone in the cut ting. The Twentieth century cutting" it is safe to say. marks greater ad- vancement upon the brilliant" than did the brilliant upon the previous cut tings.
 The names of the facets of diamond are more or less familiar The flat top surface of the old ordinary brilliant is called the table The outer edge of the stone, or it's largest diameter is called the girdle, and the small surface at the bottom is called the culex. The brilliant cutting has fifty-six facets or cuttings. and, including the table and the culex, ifty-eght facets.
 The "Twentieth century cutting gives the diamond eighty facets. and does away at the bottom Both the upper and lower surfaces come to point, leaving no fiat surface on any part of the stone.
 Any one who looks at brilliant dia- mond must notice that the fiat surface on top (the table) of the stone is com parativelv lusterless and dull. To get the best effect from such a stone one must turn it until the light strikes it at the cutting" does away with this surface. or dull spot
 In other words, the brilliant absorbs the light through the table aud gives it off from its facets at the side. The new cut ting absorbs the light from the entire surface and gives it off with mar. us briliancy from every one of its eighty shinii facets. No matter at what angle the light stiikcs the new stone. or from what point it Is viewed, it retains the same dazzling brilii1ncy.
 This marvellous brilliancy Is due to the fact that each of the eighty facets has been . cut at exactly the proper angle in relation to every other facet. If the anele of a single facet was not matn"- matically correct. according to the laws of optics, the brillianey would be i'm paired or lost.