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200
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PRECIOUS STONES.
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the natives, — they were ignorant of the gem in its original
state, — but through a Portuguese, who, suspecting their true nature, sent some diamond pebbles to Lisbon for examination. The tests applied proved his suspicions well founded, and the discovery created a great sensation among the dealers in Europe. The Dutch, who had a monopoly of the India trade, made
an effort to depreciate the Brazilian diamonds by pronouncing them spurious, but they were countervailed in their designs by a skilful manoeuvre of the dealers, who first sent them to India, then reshipped them to Europe as Indian stones, and had them cut after the Indian fashion. Stories about the productiveness of the South American
mines seem fabulous. The diamonds were found scattered about in the most lavish manner, and were picked up by children and slaves, and even seen adhering to the roots of vegetables. The vast extent of these diamond-fields, and their exceeding richness in this precious stone, at first caused a great panic in commercial circles, from fear of overproduction, but that result has been greatly neutralized by the difficulty and danger of working the mines, and the constantly increasing demand for this gem. As an instance of the immense yield in Brazil, the Bank of Lisbon is said to have sold, in 1863, a collection of these diamonds made by John VI., in 1821, valued at one million eight hundred thousand francs, and still there remains to the Portuguese crown an overplus, in these gems, valued at thirty-five million francs. Europe received from Brazil, during the first twenty years after the discovery of the mines, more than three million carats of diamonds. The total production from 1861 to 1867 was nearly one and one-half million dollars. The various estimates in regard to the yield of the Brazilian
mines are, no doubt, to a greater or less extent, conjectural, |
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