DIAMOND MINING 219
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when starting on the expedition he was about to make at the request of
the Czar Nicholas, that he would certainly bring Russian diamonds back
with him from the Uralian deposits. Though he had the enthusiastic
assistance of Count Polier, Humboldt met with little success, and some
Russians of the neighborhood have hinted that the diamond he brought
back was placed there to be found for him. No proof of fraud exists,
however, and as diamonds have undoubtedly been found throughout that
section since, and Russian mineralogists, after carefully looking into
the matter, were of the opinion that the discovery was genuine, he may
be said to have proved his assertion.
This
first diamond was found in a small gold-washing of Adolphskoi, on a
stream connected with the Polud-enka, a head-stream of the Kovia, which
by way of another tributary flows into the Kama river. During the next
five years, about 50 small diamonds were found, of which the largest
weighed under three carats. Search has been made constantly in the
gold-washings throughout the Ural mountains from that time to the
present, and probably 200 stones in all have been found. Small
crystals, of scientific interest only, have been picked up from time to
time over a wide range south to the gold-washings of Katshkar. With few
variations, the minerals usually associated with diamonds, occur with
them here also, i. e., garnet, quartz, zircon, topaz, rutile,
magnetite, cassiterite, epidote, etc.
There
has been much scientific speculation as to the rock from which they
were derived, but as the diamonds have been all found in sands, no
undisputed conclusion
