SOME GREAT DIAMONDS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20851, 18 April 1931, Page 2 (Supplement)

SOME GREAT DIAMONDS.

RECENT AFRICAN FIND.

TWO LUCKY PROSPECTORS.

OTHER CELEBRATED GEMS. "CULLINAN" AND "KOH-I-NOOR." BY JOHN G. HOWE. Two penniless men recently found one of the largest diamonds in the world. It ■weighs 200 (about l|oz.), anil, on a conservative estimate, experts consider it should be- worth at least, £IOO,OOO. It was found on the Lichtcnburg, West Transvaal, alluvial diamond diggings, on January SQ, by two prospectors, A. B. Du Toit and J. P. Botha, who had been digging in vain for months. Tho two men wero reduced to their last ninepenco; ' they spent sixpence on mealies (maize) and tho remaining threepence on meat for themselves and their eight dependents, and after tho meal i resumed work, deciding to dig onco more beforo abandoning the diamond fields. Almost iin/nediately they unearthed the stone; and they sold it on the following day for a high figure, which was not disclosed but which made them comparatively rich men. Large Diamond Unearthed. Tho largest diamond in tho world is the " Cullinan " diamond. It was found iti tho Premier diamond mine, near Pretoria, in tho Transvaal, in January, 1905. Two years later, it was presented to King Edward Vll. in commemoration of tho granting by Great Britain of self-Govern-ment to tho Transvaal. It weighs 3030 carats, being three times as large as tho laigest of the other big diamonds of history, ancfits value is variously estimated at £15,000,000 and £5,000.000. It is worn on State occasions by Queen Mary. Previously, the largest diamond found in South Africa was tho. "Excelsior," found by a Captain Jorgansen. It ■weighed 971 carats, and was valued at £1,000,000. But, as. it was found difficult to dispose of it, it was cut into nine smaller gems. The biggest diamond ever found at De Beers Mine, Kimberley, ■weighed carats and was estimated as ■worth about £50,000: it measured an inch and a-half by an inch and a quarter. Anothdr famous stone, found at Kimberley in 1880, was the " Porter Rhodes," named after its possessor; it weighed 150j carats. / Tho " Golden Dawn "—a circular brilliant of riph amber colour, and weighing 61g carats —was found by Captain C. B. Lucas, D.5.0., in 1913, on an alluvial claim near Sidney, on tho aal Liver. Originally 183 carats, it is considered ■worth from £75,000 to £IOO,OOO. Tho record price , in a sale for any diamond is £400,000 paid by the Nizam of Hyderabad for tho '.Victoria" diamond of 180 carats. The Vanished " Great Mogul." Tho " Orloff," which formerly adorned the of the Tsar of Russia, was found iu India, and is said to ha\e weighed/900 carats uncut, although its later weight is stated to have been only 191 carats. Tho story goes that it was originally . used as an Indian Brahmiuical idol's eye, was stolen by a French soldier, and sold/to tho Empress Catherine of Russia for £90.000 and an annuity of £4OOO. Tho " Great Mogul " diamond was found in/1550 in Golconda—the ruined city and fortress near Hyderabad, Southern India, so famous for its diamonds in old times tlLat its name is still used as a svnonym, /for great wealth in precious stones, and likewise noted for the mausoleum of the ancient Indian monarchs. 'Also known as " Mirgimola's " diamond, tho " Great Mogul " weighed 792 carats uncut", but it cut to only 279 carats. It lias now vanished, but it was seen in 1665 at tho court of Aurungzebe, the Great Mogul emperor, by Tavernier, the famous French traveller. r lhe stone was stolen at tho sacking of Delhi by the Persian dbnqucror, Nadir Shah, in 1739, and is supposed to havo been broken up. Tho " Pitt " or " Regent " diamond T,as found at Puteal, 45 leagues from tho city , of Golconda by a slave, who concealed it in a gash ho made in tho calf of his leg until he found an opportunity of escaping to Madras. There, it is said, an English sea captain, by promising to find' a purchaser for the stone on condition of 'sharing half tho proceeds, lured him aboard ship and flung him overboard. Murderer's Tragic End. The murderer sold the stone for £IOOO t.i a Pnrseo merchant named Jamchund, spent the money in riotous living, and hanged himself. Jamchund sold the diamond to Governor Pitt, of Fort St. George,'' Madras—the grandfather of the illustrious fiVtft Earl of Chatham —for £12.500. The stone, uncut, weighed 410 carats, but only cut to carats. Howtho fragments separated in shaping it realised £3500, and the operation, •which cost £SOOO and occupied two whole years, made it the first diamond in the world as regarded perfection of form and purity of water. Governor Pitt sold tlie "Regent" in 1717 to the Duke of Orleans, who was Regent of France, tor £135.000 —a price considered much below its real value—and it was placed in the French regalia, or crown jewels, and entered in the inventory as worth £480,000. In September, 1792, during the French Revolution. it was stolen with the " Saucy diamond and the rest of the royal jewels. Tho thieves" were never discovered, and it was supposed that the keepers, acting in tho interest of the loval family,, perpetrated the theft. An anonymous letter, though, informed (lie Commune where lo find ihe " Regent," which was too wellknown/for the thieves to dispose of it, and it, was secured, along with a noble agato chalice, stripped of ils precious gold mounting. Tho /' Saucy " diamond remained undiscovered. although a stone answering to its description afterwards turned up. The " Regent " or " Pit " then passed into /lie hands of Napoleon 1., who had it set in the pommel of his State sword. .Previously, bv pledging it to the Dutch Government, he obtained the necessary funds fo consolidate his power. Fame of the " Koh-i-noor." The " Koh-i-noor" is perhaps the most famous of all diamonds. It is an oval, almost spherical, stone of a greyish tinge, and afyout' the size of a pigeon's egg. It ■weighed 800 carats uncut, but by bad outtinji it was reduced first to 136 carats and then to 102',. Haber, the founder of the Mogul Empire in India, is reported 1o have stated that it came into the Delhi'/ treasury from the conquest of Malwa, in 1304, and the Hindoos attributed the ruin brought upon the Moguls to a curse attaching to it through ils having been wrested from tho lino of [Vikramaditya. Tavarnier saw the " Koh-i-noor " at Dellii in 1665. It passed into the hands of N'lidir Shah, and ultimately those of Ttnnjeet Singh, the ruler of the Sikhs of the Punjab. Bunjeet Singh bequeathed the gem to the shrine of Juggernaut, and it wijs captured by the East India Com-

panv at the taking of the Punjab. Then in 1850, Lord Dalhousie, in tho name of the East India Company, presented the stone to Queen Victoria, who in her turn bequeathed it to Queen Alexandra, and it is now one of the British Crown jewels. Its valuo is estimated at £120,000. The " Pink Diamond," or " Grand Conde," was for many generations in the family of Prince Conde, of France, and measured in length and nearly onethird of an inch in width. It was mounted as a tie-pin and set in small pearls. Soino years ago it came into prominent nolico through being stolen from tho Gem Tower of the museum in the Conde Chateau at Chantilly.. Then there are the " Florentine (133 carats), " Tho Star of tho South " (124 carats), " Tavernier's Great Table " (243 carats), tho "Austrian Boso " (90 carats), (he "Blue Hope " carats), "The Green Saxon" (49 carats) and " Jacob's Plaything " carats). " The Star of the South " is estimated to be worth £BO,OOO. " Tavernier's Great Table " is. or was. a flat white stone, lain, by ljjin., with eight bevelled edges or facets cut in parallel pairs. The " Austrian Pose," a beautiful orange stone, was shaped like a miniature Rugby football; the "Green Saxon " was a green-tinted, pear-shaped stone; .and "Jacob's Plaything," a yellowish gem, about the sizo of a large pea. Tho " Blue Hope," a dark blue stone with facets resembling a multi-pointed star, is said to have brought ill-luck in some form or another to everyone who has ever had anything to do with it. It belonged to tho Hope family, but has changed owners many times. Its value is estimated at £60,000.