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Ch. 9: Cutting Diamonds

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CHAPTER NINE
CUTTING DIAMONDS
In the rough a diamond is a very homely object. You would scarcely bother to pick it up if you saw one lying in your back yard. It looks much like a piece of broken glass. It is not surprising to learn that the ancients who knew nothing of cutting except that one diamond could be used to cut another, regarded the diamond as something difficult to adopt in the way of an ornament. They could cut much easier the pearl, the ruby; and the emerald which were of a softer material. The unyielding hardness and in­destructibility of the diamond they admired even then, but that it had any other virtue was entirely unsuspected.
Just about the time that diamond cutting was penetrat­ing into Europe from India, 1456, there lived a lapidary in the city of Bruges; Louis Van Berquen, a Belgian. It is generally supposed that he was the first to discover the art of cutting and polishing diamonds by their powder; but this must be somewhat inaccurate, as already in 1373 the Emperor Charles had the clasps of his cloak ornamented with diamonds.1
1 Emanuel, Hariy, Diamonds and Precious Stones, p. 64. 78
Ch. 8: Properties and Tests Diamonds Diamonds Page of 153 Ch. 9: Cutting Diamonds
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