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24
PRECIOUS STONES
Victoria, July 3, 1850. It weighed one hundred and eighty-six and one-half carats, but was afterwards recut to one hun­dred and six and one-fourth carats. It is a beautiful stone, but not of the finest color or quality. Drawings of it are in Plates XVI. and XIX.
The " Orloff" is a fine, clean, and very brilliant stone of one hundred and ninety-four and three-fourths carats, set in the sceptre of the Russian emperor. It is said to have been at one time the eye of a Brahmin statue, and is thought by some to be the " Koh-i-noor" of Hindoo legends and tradi­tion. Tradition says it was stolen by a French soldier in the early part of the eighteenth century and carried to Europe. It was finally sold at Amsterdam, in 1791, to Count Orloff for the Empress Catherine II., of Russia, for one million four hundred thousand Dutch gulden. (Plate XVII.)
Another Russian crown diamond of one hundred and twenty carats is often confounded with the " Orloff." It was purchased by the Empress Catherine of an Armenian named Schafras, in 1774, for four hundred and fifty thousand rubles, a life pension of four thousand rubles (Mawe says four thousand pounds), and a patent of nobility. This stone belonged to Nadir Shah, Sultan of Persia, and is said to be flawless, of a flattened ovoid, the size of a pigeon's egg. Mawe quotes the weight at one hundred and ninety-three carats, but he probably confounded it with the " Orloff."
The " Great Diamond Table" seen by Tavernier in Gol-conda, India, in 1642, has disappeared. (Plate XVIII.) Weight, two hundred and forty-two and three-sixteenths carats.
The " Shah" (Plate XVIII.) was presented to the Em­peror Nicholas, of Russia, by the Persian Prince Cosroes, son of Abbas Mirza, in 1829. It is a stone of fine color and quality, and before recutting had the names of three Persian kings engraved upon it. It weighed eighty-six carats.
The Nizam of Hyderabad possesses a fine stone of two