Jasper County Democrat, Volume 4, Number 17, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 August 1901 — HISTORIC DIAMONDS. [ARTICLE]

HISTORIC DIAMONDS.

Art of Poll •bin g »ia«nond« Unlcnowa Upto the Fourteenth Century. Pliny said that tn gems might be perceived all the majesty of nature united in small space. Epitome's of all that is most perfect, these flowers of the rock add to splendor of form and color the quality that most Impresses the Imagination of finite man, durability, while In virtue of their rarity they become most truly precious—attributes all possessed in sovereign degree by the diamond, the Greek adamas, the itable,” the marvelous stone which nothing in nature, so the ancients believed, could Impress; w’hlch placed on an anvil and struck with a hammer, as Martial and Lucretius record (an erroneous test, responsible for the loss of many fine stones), shivered the Iron without being affected by the blow. Plato described this gem as a kind of kernel formed in gold, condensed from the purest and noblest part of the metal, and prized more for its medical and psychical virtues rather than for its beauty; in fact, up to the fourteenth century the art of polishing the diamond with its own dust had not been discovered. His theories were sustained as late as the beginning of the fifteenth century by the alchemist Cardan, who believed that precious stones were engendered by juices distilled from gold, silver and iron in the cavities of the rocks, and who asserted solemnly that these masterpieces of nature, these quintescences of the precious metals, not only live, but also suffer Illness, old age and death. This conviction that even the Impenetrable crystal of the diamond Incloses its atom of the universal spirit, together

with all the vague mystical notions concerning the influence of gems, the waning and rejuvenescence of the pearl, the opal, the turquoise, in accordance with the fortunes of their human owners, the prescriptions of the ancient pharmacopeia which administered powders of topaz or of hyacinth for the cure of hypochondria or sleeplessness; the superstitions of astrological mineralogy, which assigned a stone to each month and to each sign of the zodiac; Theophrastus’ division of gems Into male and female, and the theories of Dloscorldes, of Avicenna, of Albertus Magnus and of St. Thomas Aquinas—all these may be traced back to their origin in that magnificent treasury of jewels, that dwelling place of mystery and witticism. India, whose philosophers held the cardinal principle the souls of the erring might be Imprisoned In the rock and serve out an Incarnation In a gem.—Lippincott’s Magazine.