Mr. Streeter has done,1
and in his accounts of these diamonds he several times repeats that '
all are agreed' that Babur's diamond and the Koh-i-Nur are identical,
and the Mogul's distinct, which are precisely the points at issue.
Indeed, he might be reminded that in his own previously published work a
he states that' any doubt as to the Mogul and Koh-i-Nur being identical
is but rarely entertained ' ; this, I venture to believe, was the
sounder opinion than the one more recently advocated by him.
At the meeting of the British Association in 1851 3
Dr. Beke referred to a diamond found among the jewels of Raza. Kuli
Khan at the conquest of Khorasan by 'Abbas Mirza, in 1832. It weighed
130 carats, and showed marks of cutting on the flat or largest face. It
was presented to the Shah, and the jewellers of Teheran asked £16,000
for recutting it. Dr. Beke suggests that it was a part of the
Koh-i-Nur, meaning thereby the Mogul's diamond. This could not have
been the case, because, as we have seen, the Mogul's diamond, if
identical with the Koh-i-Nur, had only a margin of about 82-1/2 carats
to lose, while if the latter be identical with Babur's diamond it could
have lost nothing. At the subsequent meeting of the Association1
Professor Tennant improved on this by suggesting that the Russian
diamond, i. e. the Orloff, formed a part of the same. Other suggestions
about the Orloff have already been dealt with above.
A host of other writers have taken up this story, and lastly, Professor Nicol in his article on the diamond in the Encyclopedia Britannica has
unfortunately suggested that these three stones formed portions of the
Mogul's stone seen by Tavernier, which amounts to saying that these
three, weighing respectively 194 3/4, 186 1/16 and 130 carats,5
or in all 510 13/16carats, were portions of one which weighed only
between 279 and 280 (Florentine) carats. His statement that ' the three
united would have nearly the form and size given by Tavernier ' is
simply incomprehensible.
If,
however, we merely suppose that the Mogul's stone, while in the hands
of one or other of its necessitous owners, after it was taken to Persia
by Nadir, had pieces removed from it by cleavage, which altogether
(there were at least three of them) amounted to the difference between
its weight and that of the Koh-i-Nur as it was when brought from India,
namely, 279 9/16 Florentine carats = 268 19/50 English carats — 186
1/16 = 82 1/3 carats, we at once arrive at a simple explana-
1 Great Diamonds of the World, 119. - Precious Stones, p. 126.
3 See Athenozum, July 5, 1851. * Ibid., September 25, 1852.
5 Professor Nicol gives the weights at 194 3/4, 186 1/16, and 132, the sum being 512};J. Compare the article by Dr. H. A. Miers, Ency. Brit., 11th ed., viii. 163.
