The
weight of a diamond is measured in carats. There are 100 points to a carat. A
carat is equal to one fifth of a gram and there are 132 carats to an ounce. For
instance, a 25 points diamond is 1/2 carat.
The carat has an interesting history. Centuries ago, the gem dealers of the Middle
East used the seeds of the carob tree to balance their scales. These seeds were
called 'keration'. The seeds were surprisingly uniform in weight, and even the
best modern scales cannot detect more than one three thousandth of an ounce
difference between seeds. The carat was the weight of a carob seed until the
20th century, when the metric system was adopted universally
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