inerals recorded are rutile, topaz, quartz, pyrites,
apophyllite, and green scales of chlorite (?). Some of these are of
very doubtful identification; others (e.g. apophyllite and chlorite)
may have been introduced along cracks. Some of the fibrous inclusions
were identified by H. R. Goppert as vegetable structures and were
supposed to point to an organic origin, but this view is no longer
held. Liquid inclusions, some of which are certainly carbon dioxide,
have also been observed.

Finally, then, both experiment and the natural occurrence in rocks and
meteorites suggest that diamond may crystallize not only from iron but
also from a basic silicate magma, possibly from various rocks
consisting of basic silicates. The blue ground of S. Africa may be
the result of the serpentinization of several such rocks, and
although now both brecciated and serpentinized some of these may have
been the original matrix. A circumstance often mentioned in support of
this view is the fact that the diamonds in one pipe generally differ
somewhat in character from those of another, even though they be near
neighbours.

_History._--All the famous diamonds of antiquity must have been Indian
stones. The first author who described the Indian mines at all fully was
the Portuguese, Garcia de Orta (1565), who was physician to the viceroy
of Goa. Before that time there were only legendary accounts like that of
Sindbad's "Valley of the Diamonds," or the tale of the stones found in
the brains of serpents. V. Ball thinks that the former legend originated
in the Indian practice of sacrificing cattle to the evil spirits when a
new mine is opened; birds of prey would naturally carry off the flesh,
and might give rise to the tale of the eagles carrying diamonds adhering
to the meat.

The following are some of the most famous diamonds of the world:--

A large stone found in the Golconda mines and said to have weighed 787
carats in the rough, before being cut by a Venetian lapidary, was seen
in the treasury of Aurangzeb in 1665 by Tavernier, who estimated its
weight after cutting as 280 (?) carats, and described it as a rounded
rose-cut-stone, tall on one side. The name _Great Mogul_ has been
frequently applied to this stone. Tavernier states that it was the
famous stone given to Shah Jahan by the emir Jumla. The _Orloff_, stolen
by a French soldier from the eye of an idol in a Brahmin temple, stolen
again from him by a s