Travels in India (Tavernier) 95.3

95.3

Except for this flaw the first carat would be placed at 160 livres, but on that account I do not estimate it at more than 150, and so calculated according to the above given rule it reaches the sum of 11,723,278 livres, 14 sols, and 3 liards. If this diamond only weighed 279 carats, it would have been worth 11,676,150 livres only, and thus these 9/16ths are worth 47,128 livres, 14 sols, 3 liards. The Grand Duke of Tuscany’s diamond weighs 139 1/2 carats, is clear, and of good form, cut on all sides into facettes, and as the water tends somewhat to a citron colour, I estimate the first carat at only 135 livres, from which the value of the diamond ought to be 2,608,335 — that is to say, two million six hundred and eight thousand three hundred and thirty-five livres. In concluding the remarks which I have made in this chapter, I should say that in the language of the miners the diamond is called iri, that in Turkish, Persian, and Arabic it is called almas, and that in all the languages of Europe it has no other name than diamond. This, then, in a few words is all that I have been able to discover with my own eyes in regard to this subject during the several journeys which I made to the mines; and if by chance some other has written or spoken of them before me, it can only have been from the reports which I have made of them.