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CHAPTER NINE
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CUTTING DIAMONDS
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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
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