to-day.
Taking into consideration the character of the people who had the
handling of the stone, the utter inability of tracking anything with
certainty through the net-work of secrecy and deceit common to Oriental
courts, and the similarity of the " Orloff," both in shape, size, and
cutting to the " Mogul," as reported by Tavernier, together with the
fact that the " Mogul" was reduced from between seven and eight hundred
carats in the rough to less than two hundred after cutting, without any
apparent reason in the style of cutting for such a loss, it appears to
the writer that the " Orloff" is identical with the " Great Mogul," and
that the " Koh-i-noor" was a large cleavage from the same crystal,
taken when the cutter reduced it about five hundred carats by simply
faceting it to a high-domed rose. This theory would reasonably account
for the unnecessary loss of weight and the confusion of traditions,
which in varying proportions have been attached alike to all three
stones. The drawings of them, Plates XVII. and XIX., appear
corroborative.
Welding the histories given of the three into one, it would be as follows:
The
"Great Mogul," found in Kollur or Wajra Karur (Tavernier calls them the
Gani Mines in the Kingdom of Golconda) probably between 1630 and 1650,
came into possession of the Moguls of the Tamerlane or Timur dynasty.
It weighed seven hundred and eighty-seven and one-half carats
(Tavernier says seven hundred and ninety-three and five-eighths
carats). It was cut and weighed after cutting, according to Tavernier,
by whom it was seen in 1665, during the reign of Aurungzebe, two
hundred and seventy-nine and nine-sixteenths carats. Later writers
claim that he erred in the matter of weight, by wrongly computing the
equivalent of the ratis by which it was weighed in the Mogul's country.
In 1739, Mohammed Shah, a successor ot Aurungzebe, was besieged by and surrendered to Nadir Shah, formerly Kouli-Khan, king of Persia, who carried off the treasures of Delhi,
