INVENTION OF DIAMOND-CUTTING. 111
In the technical description of the brilliant (" brilliant récoupé "), the upper surface is the table ; its sloping edge, the beasil ; the junction of the upper truncated pyramid with the lower, or the broadest part, the girdle ; the lower pointed portion the pavilion ; the bottom plane, the collet (" culasse "). Between the table and the girdle are 32 facets ; below the girdle 24. Facets are named from their forms, star-facets, touching the table ; the rest, the upper and lower skill-facets ; or
as the French term them, " dentelles, losanges, feuillets." As a rule,
small stones lose 38 or 40 per cent, of their weight, large ones 50 and
even more, in being reduced to this form ; but in the old perfect
Indian octahedrons the loss was much less, the crystal naturally
lending itself to the shape.
Tavernier
gives (ii. 373) a very instructive drawing of a monster rough stone
weighing 157-1/4 carats, bought by him at Amadaboo for a friend : and
again of the same when cut, at the same place one must infer. It is
reduced to an almond shape, facetted on both sides, the exact figure of
the Sancy, and to the weight of only 94-1/2 carats, showing the immense
waste entailed by this pattern. According to this rule, the unlucky
Borghis was not so very culpable in his diminishing the weight of the
Mogul : in fact the waste in the latter case was considerably less.
During
the last century the chief seat of the business of diamond-cutting for
the world was London ; and even now an old town-cut brilliant can
immediately be distinguished from those prepared by the modern Dutch
(who sacrifice beauty of form to preservation of weight), by the
superior accuracy and excellence of the work, and consequently it
