what I had also been told, that Mr. Briefel's theory is not that usually accepted by scientists.
"You know how diamonds are formed?" he began.
I
said that as I understood it, they occurred like other crystals in
rocks of igneous origin, having solidified as the melted stuff, or
magma, cooled down. Some people believe they might be formed of coal, I
continued; the coal would have been subjected to such heat and pressure
that it lost all trace of-----
"Yes,
yes, all that," said Mr. Briefel. "But what I believe is this. At
certain times of the day the sky is colored. At sunrise you have what
colors? Yellow, orange, and red. Suppose your diamonds take shape at
these moments. They are reflecting the yellow or the red, and it
becomes a part of them. Or if it is not sunrise or sunset, but the
middle part of the day when the sky is blue, they reflect the blue.
Just at the moment they turn hard they take on the color of the sky. If
they are formed at night when there is no color for them they become
pure and colorless, what we call white. That is how it happens, I am
sure."
After
a short pause I ventured to argue. According to the accepted theory, I
said, this crystallization took place thousands of feet below the
surface of the earth. That is the only way such tremendous pressure
could occur. How then, if the diamonds were out of sight of the
sky—but Mr. Briefel would not accept my arguments. He pointed out that
nobody really knew, and I had to admit that there, at least, he was
right. Nobody knows.
"So that is my theory," he ended happily.
Mr.
Briefel comes from Austria. Unlike many of his colleagues he did not
start his life's career at the diamond-worker's bench: a scholarly
type, he studied at the University of Vienna
