While engaged in perfecting his appliances, chance threw in his way an itinerant vendor of porcelain, who had in former years served as laborer in the diamond ateliers of Amsterdam. The sight of the rough gems and the apparatus recalled to the Jew the scenes of his youth, and awakened a desire of renewing his former occupation; and he offered to perform the part of diamond-cutter. But, as the process was carefully considered, it was discovered that the Jew could only cut the facets of the diamond, and the art of the subsequent polishing he did not understand. It seemed strange that an artisan who possessed the rare ability to tell at a glance how large a gem the stone would cut, how to avoid internal imperfections, and how to take advantage of its cleavage planes, could not polish the facets after he had cut them. But such was the fact; for the two processes of cutting and polishing are widely different, and require separate instruction. However, the deficiency was soon supplied by an acquaintance, who was induced to leave Holland and act as polisher in the American diamond adventure. The establishment was now complete, but the business was at first confined to recutting and repolishing gems that had been damaged by long use or accident. The inventive genius of Mr. Morse made several important changes in the machinery required by the lapidary, and displaced the rude and cumbersome apparatus of the old system. At first but two or three men were employed; but after the discovery of the South African diamond mines, the rough gems imported to this country soon furnished material for a more extensive establishment than was at first contemplated; and so the workshop was enlarged, and the workmen increased, until twenty-four polishing wheels were put in operation by steam power, and a force of thirty persons employed in the various parts of the process. At first none but foreigners were employed in the labor; but Mr. Morse believed that American ingenuity could master all the difficulties of the process, and finally succeeded in educating a corps of workmen who soon proved to be far superior to any of the artisans imported from the diamond-cutting establishments of Amsterdam. Now the atelier of Mr. Morse may be considered as essentially American both in its artists and its arrangements. Many fine gems of large size have been polished by Mr. Morse, and among them four of the great weight of fifty karats each. And very recently he has ventured to attempt the cutting of a great diamond from South Africa, weighing one hundred and twenty-five karats. The operation was a successful one, and after three and a half months’ labor a beautiful gem of seventy-seven karats weight was obtained, which is greatly admired by amateurs and experts, not only on account of the rare beauty and perfection of the mineral itself, but also as a remarkable specimen of workmanship in shaping its present form.