346 SUMMARY HISTORY OF THE KOH-I-NÜR
When
the Punjab was annexed, in the year 1849, the diamond was formally
handed to the new Board of Government at one of its earliest
meetings—and it was then personally entrusted by his colleagues to the
care of John Lawrence, afterwards Lord Lawrence, who, on receiving it,
placed the small tin box containing it in his waistcoat pocket, and
then forgot all about it till he was called upon to produce it six
weeks later, in order that it might be sent to Her Majesty the Queen.
Recalling
the circumstances when thus reminded of them, he hurried home and,
asked his bearer whether he had got the box which had been in his
pocket some time previously. Careful about trifles, like most Indian
servants, the bearer had preserved it, though he thought it only
contained a useless piece of glass. This strange vicissitude in the
history of the stone is related by Bosworth Smith in his life of Lord
Lawrence.1 He adds that he had been told on good authority
that it had passed through other dangers, on the way home, before it
was safe in the possession of the Queen.
In
1851 the Koh-i-Nûr was exhibited in the first great Exhibition, and in
1852 the recutting of the stone was entrusted by Her Majesty to Messrs.
Garrards, who employed Voorsanger, a diamond cutter from M. Coster's
atelier at Amsterdam. The actual cutting lasted thirty-eight days, and
by it the weight was reduced to 106-1/16 carats. The cost of the
cutting amounted to £8,000.
3. On
the Grand Duke of Tuscany''s Diamond, otherwise known as the Austrian
Yellow or the Florentine; and on the absolute weights of the carat and
rati as known to Tavernier.
When writing of the carat (see vol. i, Appendix, p. 332), and when making the several references to the Grand Duke of Tuscany's diamond, I had not seen Dr. Schrauf's original paper 2
on the weighment of the stone, and, having obtained my information of
it indirectly, I was misled as to its precise purport, which does not
prove that the absolute weight of the stone is less than Tavernier gave
it, but demonstrates that the difference in weight is only apparent.
The absolute weight is 27-454 grm. which converted into carats, gives
