pass right through as through a
window pane. If the sloping sides are brought up to a blunt point, as in
cut (c) there is very much less loss of light and greater beauty
results. The East Indian cabochons are frequently cut in a fashion
resembling that suggested.

[Illustration: FIG. 13.--BRILLIANT CUTTING.]

ROSE CUT STONES. It was natural that the earliest cut stones should have
the simple rounded lines of the cabochon cutting, for the first thing
that would occur to the primitive worker who aspired to improve upon
nature's product, would be the rubbing down of sharp edges and the
polishing of the whole surface of the stone. Perhaps the next
improvement was the polishing of flat facets upon the rounded top of a
cabochon stone. This process gives us the ancient type of cutting known
as the _rose_ cut. The drawings (a) and (b) of Fig. 12 show the front
elevation and the top and (c) shows the path of a ray of light through a
"rose." It will be noted that the general shape resembles that of a
round cabochon, but twenty-four triangular facets have been formed upon
the top. The well-proportioned rose has a thickness about one half as
great as its diameter. Diamonds were formerly cut chiefly in the rose
form, especially in the days of the East Indian mines, and even in the
early part of the nineteenth century many people preferred finely made
roses to the thick, clumsy brilliants of that day. To-day only very
small pieces of diamond are cut to "roses." As the material so used
frequently results from the cleaving of larger diamonds, the public has
come to know these tiny roses as "chips."

The best roses have twenty-four regular facets but small ones frequently
receive only twelve, and those are seldom regular in shape and in
arrangement. Such roses serve well enough for encrusting watch cases and
for similar work, as the flat base of the stone can be set in thin metal
without difficulty. About the only gem other than diamond that is now
cut to the rose form is garnet. Large numbers of small Bohemian garnets
are cut to crude rose form for use in cluster work.

[Illustration: FIG. 14.--STEP CUTTING.]

THE BRILLIANT CUT, as its name implies, gives the most complete return
of light of any of the forms of cutting. The theory of the brilliant has
already been discussed (Lesson XXII. in connection with the cutting of
diamond). The shape of the brilliant is too well known to require much
description. Most brilliants to-day are