Diamonds: their legends and uses

Title

Creator

Roces, Alejandro R.

Language

English

Source

Panorama Volume XIX (No. 12) December 1967

Year

1967

Subject

Diamonds

Diamonds in literature

Rights

In Copyright - Educational Use Permitted

Abstract

Most precious stone

Fulltext

■ How much do people know about this most pre cious stone. DIAMONDS: THEIR LEGENDS AND USES In the newly independent nation of Lesotho in South Africa, the wife of a poor farmer found a 601-karat dia mond — the seventh largest in the world — which she sold for $300,000! Karat was originally the weight of the carob seed, against which diamonds were weighed — but the term today applies to metric karat. There is a story that the father of Winston Churchill while gaping down the pit of the Kimberley diamond mine remarked.' “All for the vanity of women!” One of the ladies present countered by saying, “And the depravity of man.” A Persian legend says that in all creation the diamond is the most useless. In fact the legend says that it was the devil who created dia monds to excite avarice after Satan noted that gay flowers in the Garden of Eden fasci nated Eve. The earliest diamonds used in jewelry were found in In dia and Borneo, and these two places remained the chief sources of this precious stone until 1725 when diamonds were discovered in Brazil. The world’s largest and finest diamond was found in South Africa. It weighed 1-1/2 pounds and was without any blemish. The South African Government presented it to King Edward VII for the crown jewels and it was sent from South Africa to London by ordinary, unregistered mail! Valued at $2-1/2 mil lion, it was eventually divided into nine stones and incorpor ated into the royal regalia. Some stones are legendary — like the Blue Diamond, to day known as the Hope Dia mond. The Frenchman Jean Baptiste Tavenier was said to have stolen it from the fore head of the god Rama-Sita after disposing of the temple 32 Panorama priests, and the god was said to have taken his revenge by having the Frenchman eaten by wild animals. But this is pure fantasy as it is known that Tavenier is buried in Moscow where he died of fever. Another famous dia mond — the Orlov — is also said to have been stolen from an Indian statue by another Frenchman. The Regent, or Pitt diamond also came from India. It weighed 410 karats and it is said that the man who found it smuggled it out by slashing his leg and hid ing the stone under the band age. Diamonds, of course, have other commercial uses. An article entitled Diamonds Are A Girl’s Best Friend says: “The diamond is still the hardest substance known. Where the hardest tool steel will cut a groove five miles long in bronze; a tungsten carbide tool stays sharp for 21 miles; the diamond-tipped tool will make a cut 1200 miles long. Diamond dies now produce most of the world’s fine wire; diamonds also polish automobile 'piston rings, drill oil wells, cut all types of stone, polish dental fillings, play much of the world’s recorded music. Yet if heated sufficiently in the presence of air, a diamond will vanish in a puff of car bon dioxide.” If diamonds are found in Borneo, isn’t it possible that they can be found in places like Palawan? — Alejandro R. Roces, Manila Chronicle, Nov. 11, 1967. December 1967 33

pages

32+

Media