Page:A treatise on diamonds and precious stones including their history Natural and commercial.djvu/38

 may also be premised, that, in speaking of individual diamonds, we often, for the sake of convenience, use the term stone, “a beautiful stone,” “a bad stone,” which, although not strictly applicable to this substance, is sanctioned by general usage.

are sold by a particular standard, which appears to be universally adopted. The integer of weight is termed a carat, and it is divided into four grains. To prevent the vircumlocution arising from the use of two terms, the weight of a diamond is often stated simply in grains. The carat is divided not only into quarters, (or grains), but also into eighths, sixteenths, thirty-seconds, and sixty-fourths, and these minute subdivisions