This famous gem, bought in Golconda from an Indian merchant by William Pitt, grandfather of the Earl of Chatham, and said to have been originally stolen, was found at Gani-Puteal, 150 miles from Golconda in 1701. Mr. Pitt gave £20,400 sterling for the gem which weighed 410 carats, and returning to England he had it recut at a cost of £5,000 and two years’ work. In this process the weight of the stone was reduced to 163⅞ carats, the fragments when sold returning £2,000 over the cost of cutting. Possession of this gem worried Mr. Pitt who sold it to the Duc d’Orleans, regent of France, whence it obtained the name “Regent,” for £135,000 sterling. It was stolen from the Garde-Meuble when the Sun was in the Diamond sign Leo, August 17th, 1792, and was mysteriously returned. Napoleon Bonaparte, who had the Sun in the sign Leo—the sign of France—at his birth, had the Regent set in the pommel of his sword. It was exhibited at the French Exhibition in 1855, and is now shown in the Apollo Gallery of the Louvre, Paris. During the attempted advance on Paris in the late war, it is stated that one of the French ministers took the Regent with him to Bordeaux whence the danger being passed, it was afterwards returned to its honoured place in the capital city of France. Its value is stated at £480,000 sterling. THE ORLOFF DIAMOND This gem was stolen by a French soldier from a temple near Trichinopoli in Mysore, where it was set as an eye stone in the statue of Brahma. The weight of the stone, which is rose cut, is 194¾ carats. The soldier sold it to an English ship’s captain for £2,000—Mr. Emanuel says £2,800—and the captain sold it to a London dealer for £12,000 sterling. It was afterwards sold to Prince Orloff, whence it obtained its name, for £90,000 sterling, and an annual pension of £4,000. The Prince presented it to Empress Katherine who had it set as an ornament at the top of the imperial sceptre. This large diamond was a stone of ill omen for Russia, a country ruled by the celestial Aquarius and opposed to the diamond sign Leo. When we reflect, in harmony with celestial philosophy, that the late Czar Nicholas II, the last of the Romanoffs, had the sign Leo in the 12th heavenly mansion at birth we can only see in the Orloff diamond the symbol of sorrow and restraint. [Illustration: HOROSCOPE OF NICHOLAS II The last of the Czar’s to whom the ancients would consider the diamond a symbol of ill omen. ] THE SANCY DIAMOND