|
ORIGIN OF THE DIAMOND 361
tallize
carbon as it can separate the component gases of water. Some have
thought that diamonds grow. The Hindus noticed that they were often
found, after heavy rains, in ground that had been carefully searched
many times before. The rains undoubtedly washed away the clay which hid
them from former searchers, but the finders said " No, they have grown
since we looked last." There are men to-day, not ignorant or
imaginative, who think it possible that diamonds grow by the slow
precipitation of infinitesimal crystals to a nucleus.
Shrewd
guesses have been made in the past, however, for Boetius De Boot, in
the early part of the seventeenth century, arrived at the conclusion
that diamonds would burn. Probably about that time there was
considerable speculation and some experimenting, in the endeavor to
determine the nature of the diamond. Robert Boyle, about 1670, showed
that part of one subjected to a high temperature, was " dissipated in
acrid vapors." The incomplete combustion was probably due to a lack of
oxygen. In 1694 Florentine academicians succeeded in burning one in
the presence of Cosmo III, Grand Duke of Tuscany, by exposing it to
solar heat concentrated by a powerful burning-glass. The Emperor
Francis I burned diamonds in 1751 in Vienna, by placing them in a
smelting furnace for twenty-four hours. Twenty years later M. Macquer
again demonstrated the combustibility of the diamond by burning a
large one completely.
By
these and other experiments, it was learned that the diamond was made
of some combustible material, but what that material was, remained a
matter of conjecture. It should be remembered here, that combustion
|
||
|
|
||