This famous stone is said by Dr. Brewer to have been found in the Golconda mine in the year 1550, but Dr. G. F. Herbert Smith states that it was known as far back as 1304, “when it fell into the hands of the Mogul emperors, and legend traces it back some four thousand years previously.” Mr. Emanuel says that the Hindu accounts “deduce it from the time of the God Krischna,” while Mr. King states that it was turned up by a peasant when ploughing in a field 40 miles distant from Golconda, “and was in its rough state fully as large as a hen’s egg.” The traveller Tavernier saw it amongst the jewels of the great Mogul King Aurungzebe. This was after it had been badly cut and unskillfully reduced by Hortensio Borgio from 793 carats to 186-1/16 carats. According to Tavernier its original weight was 787½ carats. Borgio’s work so angered Aurungzebe that he deprived the unfortunate cutter of all his possessions, grudgingly allowing him to escape with his life. The Koh-i-Noor had an evil reputation amongst the Hindus who held that it “produced inordinate greed, viciousness and various misfortunes on the King who possessed it.” In 1739 Nadir Shah sacked Delhi and took the gem from Mohammed Shah, naming it the “Koh-i-Noor,” or “Mountain of Light.” Returning victorious to Persia, Nadir Shah was murdered by his officers. One of these, Ahmed Shah Doorannee, founded the Afghan kingdom, and the last of his dynasty Shah Sujah was starved into surrendering the stone to Runjeet Singh. The latter when dying sent it to the Temple of Juggernaut. His successors, however, would not let it remain there, and when the British annexed the Punjaub in 1849 it was presented by Lord Dalhousie on behalf of the East India Company to Queen Victoria and, writes Mr. King, “within ten years the usual consequences of its possession were manifested in the Sepoy revolt and the all but total loss of India to the British Crown in which beams its malignant lustre, lighting up a very inauspicious future for that region, fated ever apparently to be disturbed by the measures of ignorant zealots at home and the plots of discontented and over-powerful allies in the country itself.” The Koh-i-Noor was recut in 1862 by Mr. Coster of Amsterdam, losing 80 carats in the cutting. The weight of the stone is now given as 106-1/16 carats, and its value is estimated at £100,000 sterling, by Dr. G. F. Herbert Smith, and at £120,664 Sterling by Dr. Brewer. It was believed that all diseases could be cured by the water in which the Koh-i-Noor had been placed. The stone could never be fortunate for India according to astro-philosophy because India is a Saturnine country ruled by the celestial Capricorn. It is more fortunate for England because England is a martial country ruled by the celestial Aries. PITT OR REGENT DIAMOND