North and South America are hand-cut and engraved with borders and rivers (creative liberties were taken!) A rough diamond sits where Central America bridges the continents. By the late 19th c., the idea of Pan-Americanism - political, economic, and cultural unity across the Americas - was gathering force. Brazil had long been a key source of diamonds, and N. America was booming with gold, silver, and new industiral wealth. A stone set in its raw state embodied the continent's natural resources and the Victorian taste for gems in their untamed, "pure" form. To the original wearer, it was a marker of belonging in a rapidly globalizing world. Total length 2 3/4". testing 14k.