About the Exploitation of the Diamond in Brazil

Captain Burton, in his "Highlands of the Brazil," says "that the first man who sent diamonds to Portugal was one Sebastino Leme do Prado, in 1725. He had washed several brilliant octahedrons in the Rio Manso, an influent of the Sequitinhonha. They found no sale; and the same happened to Bernardo (or Bernardino) da Fonseca Lobo, who hit upon a large specimen amongst others, in the Cerro do Frio. There is a local tradition that the latter was a friar who had been in India, and that about 1727, seeing the curious brilliant little stones used as counters at backgammon by the gold miners of the Sequitinhonha, he made a collection of them, and took them to Portugal. Others attribute the discovery to an Ouvidor, or Auditor Judge, fresh from service at Goa. The specimens were sent to the Netherlands, then the great jewel-market of Europe."

The official account of the diamond exploitation in Brazil was that of D. Lourenco de Almeida, the first governor of Minas Geraes (Aug. 18th, 1721, Sept. 1st, 1732), who reported the new source of wealth to the home government. Portugal at once declared the diamond district to be crown property, and established the celebrated Diamantine demarcation, forty-two leagues in circumference, with a diameter of fourteen to fifteen leagues.

Among the crown jewels of Portugal is a magnificent diamond, "the Braganza," which was extracted from the mine of Caetha Mirim, in 1741. It was worn by D. Joas VI., who had a passion for precious stones, and possessed them to an amount estimated at three millions sterling. There are some differences as to the weight of this diamond; Mawe and the Abbe Reynal make it 1,680 carats. It is, however, suspected to be a fine white topaz, a stone which, in the Brazil and elsewhere, often counterfeits the diamond. Mr. St. John, in his "Forests of the East," mentions a noble in Brunei who, for one thousand pounds, offered a diamond for sale the size of a pullet's egg, which proved to be a pinkish topaz.