In the same way, the Pitt diamond, an Indian one, named after General Pitt, of Madras, weighed originally 3 oz., and is now (it is in Paris, in the Louvre, and is called “The Regent”) less than an ounce in weight. The biggest Indian diamond known--the Nizam--is not quite twice this size, whilst the Kohinoor, which is probably a fragment (a third) of the “Great Mogul”--a diamond which has disappeared, leaving only tradition and surmises as to its history--weighs no more than three-quarters of an ounce. This seems a small affair by the side of the twenty-one ounces of the Cullinan. No one can guess what will happen to the Cullinan in cutting it. At the best, it may be reduced to something between four and five ounces in weight, and it may “fly” into fragments. It would be necessary deliberately to cut it up into smaller stones in order to obtain the full result of flashing of light and colour which twenty-one ounces of diamond can produce. And the operation of cutting and polishing is enormously expensive. One would have hoped that Sir William Crookes and other men of science would have been asked to examine this wonderful mass of transparent carbon by means of polarised light, Röntgen rays, and radium, and to determine exactly its specific gravity before it was broken up. Indeed, it would probably have retained its greatest interest and value if never cut at all. Glass or “paste,” as it is called, is made which cannot when new be distinguished from diamond by anyone but an expert, armed with the necessary tests. And the same is true as to paste imitations of all precious stones excepting the emerald (whose beautiful green tint cannot be exactly obtained), the cat’s-eye, which has a peculiar fibrous structure, and the opal. The real value and quality of precious stones, as compared with glass, depends on their durability, their hardness, their resistance to scratching, and “dulling” of face and edge. Even our Anglo-Saxon ancestors, as may be seen in the fine collection recently dug up at Ipswich by Miss Layard, and placed in the old house serving as the municipal museum there, made gems of glass and paste. In modern times the art of making artificial “precious stones” has reached a degree of perfection which, so far as decorative purposes are concerned, leaves the natural stones no claim to superiority. Gigantic as the Cullinan diamond is, it represents only about half the daily output of the De Beers mines. By the end of 1904 ten tons of diamonds, valued at £60,000,000 sterling, had been removed from the Kimberley mines. It is difficult to imagine what has become of them all, and since they are, unlike paste, durable and permanent, how the demand for additions to those in use, keeps up. Twelve years ago about four million pounds was spent annually by the public on the purchase of diamonds. It is stated that the annual demand and expenditure are now even larger.