Fig. 11 shows in (a) and (b) the front and top of the usual round cabochon. Cut (c) of the same figure gives the front elevation of a cabochon which will light up better than the usual round-topped design. In the round-topped type the central part of the top is so nearly parallel to the back that light can pass right through as through a window pane. If the sloping sides are brought up to a blunt point, as in cut (c) there is very much less loss of light and greater beauty results. The East Indian cabochons are frequently cut in a fashion resembling that suggested. [Illustration: FIG. 13.--BRILLIANT CUTTING.] ROSE CUT STONES. It was natural that the earliest cut stones should have the simple rounded lines of the cabochon cutting, for the first thing that would occur to the primitive worker who aspired to improve upon nature's product, would be the rubbing down of sharp edges and the polishing of the whole surface of the stone. Perhaps the next improvement was the polishing of flat facets upon the rounded top of a cabochon stone. This process gives us the ancient type of cutting known as the _rose_ cut. The drawings (a) and (b) of Fig. 12 show the front elevation and the top and (c) shows the path of a ray of light through a "rose." It will be noted that the general shape resembles that of a round cabochon, but twenty-four triangular facets have been formed upon the top. The well-proportioned rose has a thickness about one half as great as its diameter. Diamonds were formerly cut chiefly in the rose form, especially in the days of the East Indian mines, and even in the early part of the nineteenth century many people preferred finely made roses to the thick, clumsy brilliants of that day. To-day only very small pieces of diamond are cut to "roses." As the material so used frequently results from the cleaving of larger diamonds, the public has come to know these tiny roses as "chips." The best roses have twenty-four regular facets but small ones frequently receive only twelve, and those are seldom regular in shape and in arrangement. Such roses serve well enough for encrusting watch cases and for similar work, as the flat base of the stone can be set in thin metal without difficulty. About the only gem other than diamond that is now cut to the rose form is garnet. Large numbers of small Bohemian garnets are cut to crude rose form for use in cluster work. [Illustration: FIG. 14.--STEP CUTTING.]