In
view of the hardness of the sapphire, so great that it will scratch
every other precious stone except the diamond, it is therefore
contended that this was the stone known to the earliest Greek writers
as adamas.1 This may be so, and it cannot be doubted that,
even at a much later day, a white corundum or a pale yellow topaz or a
good rock crystal often passed for a diamond in the hands of
collectors or in the sharp practice of gem selling. Whatever may have
been the blundering of the Greeks or the application of adamas, there
is, nevertheless, no sufficient reason in this for questioning the
probability that genuine diamonds were found in the gravels of India
many centuries before the Christian era. As far back as tradition goes
the largest stones were particularly prized by the native princes, and
were strictly exacted in tribute from the diamond-bed washers. But the
smaller stones were less jealously guarded, and may readily have found
their way into the hands of traders with the other peoples of Asia or
with Egypt. It seems most probable that the Jews derived their first
knowledge of precious stones from the Egyptians chiefly, for the Hebrew
names of the stones are of Egyptian derivation.2 Thus there
is no approach to certainty for the assumption that the stones called
diamonds in the English version of the Hebrew Scriptures were not
rightly named, or that allusions to the diamond in other ancient
writings were wholly unreliable or mistaken.
The
main support for the questioning of the mingling of diamonds with the
other gems noted by the ancient writers is the apparent failure to
uncover diamonds in the excavations on the site of ancient temples and
cities where other precious stones are brought to light. Thus emeralds
and other gems in various settings have been exhumed from the volcanic
overflow that
1 "History of Stones,"
Theophrastus. Edited by Sir John Hill, London, 1746. " Elem. de Min.,"
Lessing, II, 61. "The Great Diamonds of the World," Streeter.
2 " Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge," Schaff-Herzog.
