66 Diamond Cutting and Polishing.
employed.
Later, however, the trade declined, and from this date it seems
gradually to have taken firm root in Amsterdam, where it still
continues one of the principal branches of industry, and more than
fifteen-sixteenths of the diamonds found are now cut there.
The
so-called double cutting, "Brillants recoupes," was introduced by
Vincenti Peruggi, or Peruzzi, at Venice, about the end of the
seventeenth century. In England there used to be several cutters, who
were renowned for the excellence and perfection of their work, and
whose diamonds, still called old English, fetch a much larger price
than any others. As in everything else, however, the reduction of the
price of labour produced a corresponding falling off in the quality of
workmanship. This trade in England is now nearly extinct. In India,
where numbers of diamonds are still cut, the work is rough and
defective, as the natives, with the mistaken idea of enhancing the
value of their gems, leave them as heavy in weight as possible; often
preserving the natural shape of the stone, and disregarding one of the
first rules of diamond cutting, that over- as well as under-weight
detracts from the value of the stone; and ignoring the fact, that a
diamond weighing, for example, seven carats, with only the spread of
five carats, is worth only the price of a five-carat stone.
Of
late years, the lapidaries have adopted a very injudicious method of
cutting, leaving the stone, from the girdle to the culet, round,
instead of angular, thus de-
