Messrs.
Fremelin & Francis Breton, the heads of the English company, showed
this handsome-looking stone to Edward Ferdinand, a Spanish Jew. He
seems to have approved of the gem, and was commissioned to take it to
Europe and seek a purchaser for it. At Leghorn he was offered 25,000
piastres for the stone by some Jews of his acquaintance. He refused to
part with it on these terms, and took it to Venice, where he determined
to have it cut. No sooner, however, was it placed on the wheel and the
operation begun, than it burst first into nine pieces, and subsequently
into small fragments.
It may be explained that the stones here spoken of are what in the trade are known as Bort, that
is, imperfect crystals, which, though useless for ornamental purposes,
have nevertheless, a certain value in the market. They are used either
for engraving hard gems, or crushed to form diamond dust. This dust,
possessing the property of extreme hardness, is mixed with oil, and
employed in polishing diamonds. Some pieces of bort have even been
turned into rose diamonds, and a curious specimen in Mr. Streeter's
collection of rough minerals shows a number of octahedral adamantine
crystals, grouped round a central nucleus of dark-coloured bort. The
mass weighs altogether 19 carats, and was procured from the South
African diamond fields by Mr. Streeter's explorers.
