Page:A treatise on diamonds and precious stones including their history Natural and commercial.djvu/106

 teral edges, and other four angles. It will be evident that the labor required to form the table and collet, must be considerably greater than is necessary for the facets, as the artist has to work directly across the lamine: hence these are called the hard points. In working upon the other angles, a facet is produced with much less difficulty, it being cut in an oblique direction to the lamine; in fact, if the same force were exerted upon them as is applied to the others, perhaps a flaw would be produced. It is probably on account of this nice adaptation of force required for the various parts of the operation, that the fatiguing process of manual labor has not been superseded by machinery.

operation of cutting is commenced by imbedding the diamond in strong cement, fixed at the end of a stout spindle-shaped stick about a foot long, with that portion only projecting, the removal of which is to form the