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Updated: June 27, 2025
The asterias, or star-stone, is a very beautiful variety, in which the colour is generally of a reddish violet, with an opalescent lustre. A sapphire of ten carats weight is considered to be worth fifty guineas. Jameson. The blue topaz, or Brazilian sapphire, is of recent introduction. The white topaz considerably exceeds rock crystal in lustre, and in Brazil is called mina nova.
The sailor had lost all his savings at faro. Dead broke, he was ready for anything which promised to recoup his fortunes. Handsome Jack laid before him a scheme which would make them both rich beyond the dreams of avarice. The recent discoveries on the Vaal had startled the world. A native had picked up a stone weighing over 80 carats. They might be equally lucky.
What, more? The furniture of the narrow chamber of death we had just visited weighed six millions of francs in ounces and carats alone, without a penny thrown into the account for the costly workmanship bestowed upon them! But we followed into a large room filled with tall wooden presses like wardrobes.
The seignorage in France raises the value of the coin higher than in proportion to the quantity of pure gold which it contains. Thus, by the edict of January 1726, the mint price of fine gold of twenty-four carats was fixed at seven hundred and forty livres nine sous and one denier one-eleventh the mark of eight Paris ounces. {See Dictionnaire des Monnoies, tom. ii. article Seigneurage, p. 439, par 81. Abbot de Bazinghen, Conseiller-Commissaire en la Cour des Monnoies
He had still twenty pounds in his pocket, he had the professor's promise of leading another trip to the north-east; and above all, he had a thousand carats of diamonds tied tightly in a bundle made fast inside his shirt. Fortune was smiling again, and full of happy dreams for the future he sauntered down the pitch dark street towards his room, whistling, and without a care.
"You say truly when you call Madame Vulpes a devil of a woman," I continued, "Simon, she told me wonderful things tonight, or rather was the means of telling me wonderful things. Ah! if I could only get a diamond that weighed one hundred and forty carats!"
What visions of diamond pins, of eight or twelve carats, all Brazilian stones; of swift, high-stepping horses; of the heaven of Harlem lane on Sunday afternoons, with a bottle or two under the vest, haunted the sleep of all the detective force.
Sinking a hole a few feet in depth and sifting the sand and gravel through a common sieve, he came across a diamond weighing fifty carats nearly half an ounce. This find caused a rush to the farm to secure claims, and the widow, with an eye to business, charged a monthly license of ten dollars. Soon this discovery was eclipsed by a more remarkable one at Dutoitspan in 1870.
It was a puny little diamond ring, of but three or four carats' weight, he mused, and yet with it had come the actual, if not the moral, turn in the tide of all his restless activities. It marked the moment when life seemed to fall back to its older and darker areas; it was the first diminutive milestone on his new road of adventure.
Helen jumped up, all flushed from excitement. "Please tell me what it is?" she exclaimed. The old gentleman drew a telegram from his pocket. "I've just received this from our agent in Cape Town. Another diamond of extraordinary size has been picked up. It weighs over 2,000 carats and is calculated to be worth five hundred thousand dollars.
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