the location of the table, which when decided upon is marked with an ink circle.
The next step in the process is that called cutting. This work was done entirely by hand, and was called bruiting, until
about twenty-five years ago, when machine cutting came into use. In
machine cutting a rough diamond is fixed by cement in a steel holder
held in a lathe and is cut by another diamond, which is also fixed into
a steel holder attached to a handle some eighteen inches long, this
latter diamond being held against the one in the revolving lathe and
the cutting done much after the manner of wood turning. The stone is
cut very rapidly as compared with the old method of bruiting, the
method which had been used from the time of the first cutting of
diamonds until the advent of machine cutting. Machine cutting, however,
can be used only for round and oval diamonds, and for the round ends of
peer or drop shape diamonds. Marquise shape, square or emerald cut, and
other fancy shapes must still be cut by hand.
Diamonds are polished on a polishing wheel covered
with diamond dust and oil. The wheel is about eleven inches in diameter
and made from a special casting of a secret alloy known only to two
men, one in Amsterdam and one
