Ispahan in 1654 was on the 9th of July, not in May as previously supposed.
It
is hoped that this Original text may be published, as it would seem,
from the glimpse of it thus given by Prof. Joret, that it would to a
great extent aid in co-ordinating various statements in the published Travels which are now contradictory.
The suggestion that J.-B. Tavernier had been imprisoned in the Bastille on the 13th January 1686 is now shown 1 to be a mistake, and that it was a namesake of his, a Tavernier of Villiers-le-Bel, who was so incarcerated.
Passing
the important additional information obtained as to Tavernier's
relations with the Elector of Brandenburg, we find that Prof. Joret has
reason for concluding that the discovery of the supposed tombstone of
Tavernier at Moscow is of a somewhat mythical character ; but, be that
as it may, an important letter from the Swedish Resident at Moscow,
dated 8th March 1689, has been discovered, by which the Swedish
Chancellor was informed that Tavernier had died three weeks previously,
not at Moscow, but at Smolensk, when on his journey to Moscow.
When
in the course of these pages reference was made to the Grand Duke of
Tuscany's diamond, it was supposed that the weight given by Schrauf for
this diamond, which is now in the Imperial Treasury in Austria, was to
be accepted as more correct than Tavernier's; but an examination of
Schrauf's original papers shows that he really confirms Tavernier's
weight for the stone in a very remarkable way. The present weight is
133 1/5 Vienna carats, which are equal to 139 1/5 of the lighter
Florentine carats ; and as Tavernier gives the weight at 139 1/2 carats
we are justified in concluding that in this case he used, and that in
general he was probably in the habit of using, the Florentine carat =
0.1972 grams,2 or 3.04 grs. troy, i.e. 4 per cent,
less than the English carat. The previous estimate of the value of the
pearl rati given in Appendix, vol. i, having been calculated on the
basis of Jths of a modern
1 M. Douen in Bulletin de la Société du Protestantisme Français, vol. xxxiv, 1887, p. 95.
2 Prof. Church, Precious Stones, p. 50, gives the value as 0-1965 grams.
