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FROM THE DEPTHS
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liquor in his food, the poison to work slowly, producing its effect at the end of four or five months.
"They resolved on mixing pounded diamond with my victuals," Cellini says and adds:
Now
the diamond is not a poison in any true sense of the word, but its
incomparable hardness enables it, unlike ordinary stones, to retain
very acute angles. When every other stone is pounded, that extreme
sharpness of edge is lost; their fragments becoming blunt and rounded.
The diamond alone preserves its trenchant qualities; wherefore if it
chances to enter the stomach together with food, the peristaltic motion
needful to digestion brings it into contact with the coats of the
stomach and the bowels, where it sticks, and by the action of fresh
food forcing it farther inwards, after some time perforates the organs.
This eventually causes death. Any other sort of stone or glass mingled
with the food has not the power to attach itself, but passes onward
with the victuals.
A
concoction was prepared for the famous goldsmith-jeweler and he
swallowed it. But he survived, thanks to the dishonesty of a goldsmith
who had been hired to pound the diamond. The goldsmith, reflecting that
the sum paid him for his dire deed was not equal to the value of the
diamond with which he was to perform it, retained the gem for himself
and instead pounded "a greenish beryl of the value of two carlins,"
thinking perhaps because it also was a stone that it would work the
same effect as the diamond. Cellini lived to tell that and a good many
other questionable tales.
How
hard the diamond really is can be understood by studying the famous
Mohs table of mineral substances. (Fredrich Mohs was an Austrian
mineralogist, born 1772, died 1839.)
1. Talc
4. Fluorspar
2. Gypsum 5. Apatite
3. Calcite 6. Feldspar
(5)
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