The foregoing narrative, which is founded upon events which actually took place, may be turned to advantage by those parents who are prone to thwart the natural inclinations of their children, or cut them adrift without a proper guide. The career of many a man has been blighted by the mistaken, though perhaps well-meant policy of a father who, desirous to see his son follow up his own profession, has tried to compel that son to work contrary to his inclination, with results more or less disastrous.
[GEMS AT RANDOM STRUNG.]
The history of precious stones, those beautiful objects which have strongly appealed to the imagination of men in all ages, has been written many times; and yet their latest chronicler is doubtless justified in assuming that the knowledge of them in its practical sense is not widespread; that even in the jeweller's trade there are many who are not skilled in detecting the real measure of difference between one stone and another, either by the specific gravity, which supplies the essential test, or by the minor tests of rarity and quality. In treating of the history and distinguishing characteristics of Precious Stones and Gems, Mr Streeter has certainly conferred a benefit on 'the trade;' to the general reader the book can hardly fail to be of interest, for it puts a captivating subject before him under a variety of aspects, and appeals successfully to imagination as well as to taste for exact knowledge.
From the magnificent specimens which the rescued Sindbad carried away with him when he tied himself with his turban to the roc's leg, on through a long succession of fable and of history, diamonds will never cease to enchant mankind, having always taken the lead in interest, as they have been supreme in value among those treasures of the mineral kingdom which are called gems or precious stones. Ages before men discovered that their beauty could be enhanced by handiwork, their rarity and their price had endowed them with a surpassing charm; and now, when handiwork has been brought almost to perfection, and science has dispelled the mystery with which the diamond was invested, they maintain their immemorial supremacy. In company with Mr Streeter we may trace the beautiful things from their habitat in India, the Brazils, South Africa, the Ural Mountains, and Australia, through their history in the ancient times and in medieval days, when they formed the theme of many fables and the object of much superstition.
The diamond dwells in the same lands and in the same strata with many other gems, but it is the most precious as it is the most difficult to find; and though its nature resembles theirs in many respects, in one it is unique—it is the hardest of all known substances, and belongs to those bodies which refract light most strongly. Its magnifying power is greater than that of glass; but it is seldom used for microscopic lenses, owing to the great difficulty of making them perfectly accurate. It was believed to possess double refraction, but that has been disproved; and the deviation which gave rise to the error is traced to the existence of internal air-bubbles, as in amber, by which the course of the light is altered. It is the triumph of cutting to exhibit these qualities to the highest degree, and thus did Babinet, a great authority on diamonds, test them. 'In a sheet of white paper he bored a hole somewhat larger than the diamond to be tested: he let a ray of sunlight pass through the hole, and holding the diamond a little distance from it, yet at such an angle as to allow the ray to alight on a point of the flat facet, he found this facet to be forthwith represented on the paper as a white figure, whilst all around little rainbow circles were delineated. If the observer found the primary colours red, yellow, and blue definitely separated one from the other in these little circles, and if their number were considerable, and they stood at equal distances from each other, then he pronounced the brilliant to be well cut.'
From Mr Streeter we learn that in commercial estimation, coloured gems stand far behind the diamond; insomuch, he tells us, that this stone represents ninety per cent., and the others altogether only ten per cent. of the quantity on sale. A hundred years ago, Brazil became the rival of India in the production of diamonds, and the finders were the poor mulattos and negroes, who explored for them the sterile wilds of Minas-Novas, and sold them to the merchants. The story of the discovery of these gems at Bahia is as follows: A slave who came from Minas-Geräes was tending his master's flocks in Bahia, and he noticed that the soil resembled that of his native place. He groped in the sand and found seven hundred carats of diamonds. He ran away, and offered the gems for sale in a distant city. Of course such wealth in the hands of a slave aroused suspicion, and the negro was arrested and sent back to his master, who tried in vain to come at a knowledge of his secret. At last he bethought him of sending the slave again to tend his flocks at Bahia, and he watched him. Again the slave-shepherd groped in the gem-hiding sand, and the truth was discovered. Then came numbers of wealth-seekers from Minas-Geräes and other parts of Brazil, so that the next year twenty-five thousand men were diamond-hunting in Bahia, and the amount daily obtained for some time rose to one thousand four hundred and fifty carats. The trade was a prerogative of the Portuguese crown, and Lisbon was the chief emporium of the gems. The precious things are of fluctuating value. In 1836 they were very dear; but in 1848 the price fell; and a few years ago there was 'a glut in the market,' in consequence of Dom Pedro's having paid the Brazilian state debt to England in diamonds instead of money, when the price fell fifty per cent. in the Leipsic market.
Mr Streeter, who has great faith in the future of Queensland as a diamond-field, gives a most interesting account of the discoveries in New South Wales, that wonderful colony, whose long-delayed luck has come at last, and from all sides at once; but dwells at length and with exultation upon the Cape diamond-fields. 'South Africa,' he says, 'is richer, and its produce is far more to the purpose of modern history, and to the supply of the precious stones, which form our wealth of gems, than the old diamond-fields of the East or West.' The history of the discovery of gems in the colonies partakes of the romance which attended the discovery of gold; and is not free from the tradition of crime and misfortune, which rests upon similar revelations in the Old World. Idle as are the superstitions which impute specific evil influences to certain gems, it is not to be denied that there have been many instances of 'fatal jewels;' and that cruelty, injustice, and terrible human suffering have attended the rifling of the earth's bosom for those mysterious treasures formed by her wonderful chemistry from an invisible component of the atmosphere. Many of the strange stories of medieval alchemists deal with the attempt to make diamonds, and Mr Streeter tells us of the experiments which have determined their nature and combustibility. There is a fascination to the imagination in the following description of the burning of diamonds:
'In 1750 the Emperor Francis I., at Vienna, subjected, in the presence of the chemist Darzet, diamonds and rubies worth six thousand florins to the heat of a smelting-furnace for twenty-four hours. The diamonds were found to have totally disappeared; but the rubies remained, and appeared much more beautiful than before. In 1771 a magnificent diamond was burned at Paris in the laboratory of the chemist Macquer. Hence arose a great discussion. The diamond had disappeared; but whither? Had it volatilised? Had it burned? Had it exploded? No one could say. Then stepped forward a celebrated jeweller, by name Le Blanc, who asserted the indestructibility of the diamond in the furnace, stating that he had often placed diamonds in an intense fire to purify them from certain blemishes, and that they had never suffered the smallest injury.' (This has been done also by Mr Streeter with similar results.) 'The chemists D'Arcet and Bonelle then demanded of him that he should make the experiment on the spot in their presence. He took some diamonds, inclosed them in a mass of coal and lime in a crucible, and submitted them to the action of the fire. He had no doubt that he should find them safe. At the end of three hours, on looking into the crucible, they had utterly disappeared.'