Artificial Production of the Diamond. Boron Diamond—Cagniard de Latour—Gannal—MM. Despretz and de Cha?icourtois.
" The liquid ore he drained Into fit moulds prepared, from which he formed First his own tools: then what might else be wrought."
Before
we give an account of the attempts that have been made to produce the
diamond by artificial means, it is necessary to state a few facts
regarding two other simple bodies whose properties very closely
resemble those of carbon, and which have an important bearing on the
subject of which we. are about to speak. These bodies are boron and
silicon.
Not
only do these bodies present exactly the three modifications presented
by carbon—that is to say, they are either crystallized, graphitoid, or
amorphous—but the crystallized boron so closely corresponds to the real
diamond that it has been named from analogy the boron diamond.
Crystals of boron are limpid and transparent;
