224	DIAMOND
	the offices of Industrial Distributors—a subsidiary company, through which De Beers markets its industrial stones—and the Diamond Research Laboratory, which was set up nine years ago to conduct research into the properties and uses of dia­monds. I soon saw that the officials and scientists there were highly interested, to put it mildly, in the General Electric dia­monds and were eagerly awaiting more facts about them. In­dustrials, which are drab stones and usually small ones, con­stitute the less glamorous side of the diamond business, but, as the men at Industrial Distributors were quick to point out, it is a highly important side. Industrials account for 80 per cent of the diamond trade in terms of bulk and 25 per cent in terms of profit—a far from negligible sum. Some South African mines produce industrial diamonds almost exclusively, and even mines which, like the Premier, are celebrated for their gems, yield far fewer gems than industrials. Diamonds are virtually indispensable to some industries, and the United States has been stock-piling them for the last ten years; being nature's hardest substance, they are used in all sorts of cutting, grind­ing, and boring tools, from glass cutters to oil-well drills, and hardly a year goes by that somebody doesn't think up a new way to use them. Upon arriving at the headquarters of Industrial Distributors, I was met by a De Beers man named White, who ushered me into a large office and introduced me to a couple of other mem­bers of the firm. After we had chatted for a few minutes, I asked them how they had felt when they heard the news of the General Electric diamonds. "Pretty bad at first," Mr. White said. "Diamond shares took a tumble right away, and for days nobody talked about anything except General Electric.