Page:A treatise on diamonds and precious stones including their history Natural and commercial.djvu/107

 first facet. Another diamond is employed, for this purpose, fixed as the former, with one of the solid angles projecting. To collect the powder and shivers that are detached during the process, the cutting is performed over a strong box, five or six inches long, furnished with a false bottom, perforated with excessively minute holes, in order to sift, as it were, the dust from the shivers; and also with two upright iron pegs fixed on the sides, for the workman to support and steady the sticks and his fingers against, while with a short repeated stroke, somewhat between rubbing and cutting, he is laboriously wearing away the dia-