Ceylon,
Burma, and India, has, even now, advanced but little beyond its crude
beginnings. The Asiatic artisan uses a polishing disc on the left end
of a horizontal wooden axle, which revolves in sockets on two upright
pegs driven into the earth or set in the timbers or boards which floor
his dwelling or shop. The motor for this machine is a long stick to
which a cord is tied, as to a bow, at each end, one turn having been
taken around the axle; the motive power is supplied by the right hand
and arm of the operator, who moves the stick back and forth; there is
usually no holding tool; the stone is held in the fingers of the left
hand and thus pressed against the surface of the polishing wheel. The
abrasive powders of corundum or some mineral nearly as hard, mixed with
water to a paste of suitable consistency, are at hand, contained in the
halves of cocoanut shells. The earliest record of the artificial
improvement of gems by the ancient Greek and Roman artisans proves
them to have had higher ideals and more invention than Orientals,
especially in the matter of imparting to stones symmetrical forms; the
greatest advance they made, however, in the treatment of gem minerals,
was in their art in cutting cameos and intaglios, their engraving
