gether,
weighing 217 carats, have been taken from the property of the Arkansas
Diamond Company, and about 35 stones from the Mauny tract in the same
pipe.
There
is a popular idea that material like the kimber-lite of South Africa
necessarily carries diamonds. Not only is this not so, but when it
does, it does not always follow that there are diamonds sufficient to
pay for getting them out. The richest diamond chimneys of Africa
together, do not average 1/2 carat of diamond to 1,600 pounds weight of
the matrix, and though very many diamondiferous pipes have been
discovered there, only a very few pay the expense of working them.
Undoubtedly there are a number of volcanic dikes in the United States
of similar material, and in some cases, almost identical with that
contained in the African pipes, but in that which most resembles the
African, no diamonds whatever have been discovered. Many of the
so-called diamonds reported, have proved to be rock crystal; some of
the genuine diamonds found are thought to have been placed where they
were discovered, and the circulation of exaggerated stories in the
press has always been followed by the formation of stock companies
whose printing bills far exceeded in amount, the value of the diamonds
produced. It is doubtful if all the diamonds found thus far in the
United States would fetch $10,000 as regular merchandise even at the
present high prices.
"
One touch of Nature makes the whole world akin." For long years man
regarded all the universe outside the earth as something foreign and
strange; unlike the elements with which we are familiar. But the earth,
sweeping through her orbit, catches betimes some wan-
