第476页 / 共2651页

That employment, however, by occasioning a new demand, and by

diminishing the quantity which could be employed in any other

way, may have afterwards contributed to keep up or increase their

value.

The demand for the precious stones arises altogether from their

beauty. They are of no use but as ornaments; and the merit of

their beauty is greatly enhanced by their scarcity, or by the

difficulty and expense of getting them from the mine. Wages and

profit accordingly make up, upon most occasions, almost the whole

of the high price. Rent comes in but for a very small share,

frequently for no share; and the most fertile mines only afford

any considerable rent. When Tavernier, a jeweller, visited the

diamond mines of Golconda and Visiapour, he was informed that the

sovereign of the country, for whose benefit they were wrought,

had ordered all of them to be shut up except those which yielded

the largest and finest stones. The other, it seems, were to the

proprietor not worth the working.