ous
" little knowledge" which sought to cull out the stones which were not
diamonds, by the absurd test of the hammer and the anvil, whereby the
hard, but cleav-able and easily fractured diamond was destroyed as
effectually as the softer rock-crystal and topaz. But out of every
chaos, truth finally emerges: the matrix of error and ignorance wears
away with time, for only truth endures. And so step by step, men
learned to differentiate these similar stones.
There
yet remained, however, as an obstacle to the use of the diamond as a
jewel of the first class, the dull exterior of the natural crystal,
and though there was that about the light of it which fascinated the
eye, and suggested beauty imprisoned behind the facets, the hard skin
barred all attempts to get more than a glimpse of the beauty it would
not fully release or unveil. For centuries that hard exterior was
invincible and the flashing brilliancy of the cut diamond was unknown.
Then came the idea of rubbing and grinding the stones together,
suggested probably by a desire to smooth the surfaces of rough and
hackled crystals. This practice led to the discovery that the even
facets of the smooth octahedron could be improved by the same process,
but, from all we can learn, the ancients got no farther.
Another
hindrance to an adequate appreciation of the diamond as a jewel was its
lack of color. The ruby, emerald and other stones, attracted the
Oriental eye by their color, but the glory of the diamond is its
brilliancy and that was partly hidden. For that reason, the ruby and
inferior stones were preferred, and even now that the inherent beauty
of the diamond is fully revealed, the natives of some eastern
countries, by hereditary instinct,
