342 THE GREAT MOGUL'S DIAMOND
tion
of the cause of the difference in weight between the stones, and are,
moreover, thus enabled to show that Tavernier's account requires no
whittling down, though the stone itself, after he saw it, appears to
have been subjected to that process.
This
would be but an hypothesis based on the rumours above referred to, were
it not so strongly corroborated by the appearance presented by the
Koh-i-Nur itself when taken by the British from the Treasury at Lahore.
Mr. Tennant* describes it as exhibiting, when brought to England, two
large cleavage planes, one of which had not even been polished, and had been distinctly produced by fracture.
No
one can examine the authentic sketches and models of the Koh-i-Nur
without feeling a strong presumption that it must have been mutilated,
after cutting, and that it cannot have been left in such an incomplete
condition by the jeweller who cut and polished it. In addition to its
possessing defects similar to some of those described by Tavernier as
having been in the Mogul's diamond, Mr. Tennant records that the
Koh-i-Nur had a flaw near the summit which, being on a line of cleavage
parallel to the upper surface, may very possibly have been produced
when the upper portion was removed— the weight of which, together with
that of two portions removed from the sides, and the loss occasioned by
the re-grinding of four facets on the upper surface, may very easily
have represented the difference in the weights of the two stones,
namely 82 1/3 carats.
This too, in a measure, explains the discrepancies between Tavernier's description, which, as Professor Maskelyne2 admits,
very fairly characterizes the Koh-i-Nur (i. e. certain flaws and
defects in it, which happened to be in the portion preserved), and the
figure, which, as it represents the whole stone, does not, at first
sight, seem to resemble the Koh-i-Nur. The accompanying illustration
(Plate VI) and descriptive notes prove not only the possibility of the
Koh-i-Nur having been thus carved out of the Mogul's diamond, but they
represent graphically the extreme probability of the truth of that
suggestion.
Tavernier's
account of the Mogul's diamond has, I think, been fully proved in the
preceding pages to be quite inapplicable to Babur's diamond, while all
his facts and the balance of probability favour the view that in the
Koh-i-Nur we are justified in recognizing the mutilated Mogul's
diamond. Thus, while this theory, which has been built up on the basis
of Tavernier's statements, is consistent with the literal acceptance
of all of them, and with the physical condition of the
1 Lecture on Gems and Precious Stones, London 1852, p. 83.
4 Proceedings of the Royal Institution of Great Britain, March 1860.
