60 PRECIOUS STONES
away
the skin of the natural facets and make a polished surface, or, if
found as pebbles, to produce a few irregular facets upon which to catch
an occasional flash-light. If the crystal was found as an octahedron or
natural brilliant, as it was called, the eight faces were simply
polished. In all cases, little of the original weight of the crystal
was sacrificed.
A
further improvement was made by increasing the number of facets to
eighteen; eight in regular order extending from the table to the
girdle, and eight to match them between the girdle and the culet.
(Fig. 2, Plate XIV.) Double rows of star and corner facets, as in 1,
2, 3, and 4, 5, 6, in Plate XII., in all thirty, and thirty-four
followed. Some of the old square brilliants were cut to fifty facets,—a
double row of main and corner facets top and bottom, as in 3, Plate
XIV. Then came the English round cut brilliant, as in 7, 8, and 9,
Plate XII., having a triple row of star, main, and corner facets on
top, and a double row of corner and main facets on the bottom,
thirty-two and the table above the girdle, and twenty-four and the
culet below; in all, fifty-eight facets. This arrangement remains in
the perfect modern cut.
During
all these years and stages of improvement, the early disinclination to
lose weight in the process of cutting remained paramount, and some
deplored the tendency of cutters even then to sacrifice magnificence
to a mere sparkling effect. A comparison of one of the " lumpy" stones
cut then with one of our modern cut brilliants will convince, however,
that the royal magnificence of the diamond can be fully attained only
by fitting its proportions to the natural qualities of the stone.
It
remained for an American cutter, Mr. Henry D. Morse, of Boston, the
first cutter of diamonds in the United States, to make the daring
sacrifice of weight to proportion necessary to attain the perfection of
the modern brilliant. Disregarding the European method of cutting less
for beauty than weight, he did not hesitate to sacrifice material in
order to make the
