THE EARLY HISTORY OF DIAMONDS
a
matrix of iron or "blue ground" is not a new one. That diamonds have
been produced in this way there is no doubt, especially since small
diamonds have been found in meteorites. However, Gardner F. Williams,
who spent twenty years as a scientist in the South African diamond
mines and was general manager of the De Beers Consolidate Mines, says,
"I am positive that the iron found with the diamonds is not the
original matrix of the diamond. My assurance rests upon the fact that
no diamonds, however small, have been found in the combination,
although these concentrates have passed daily under the eyes of
hundreds of keen-eyed sorters for more than thirty years, and thousands
upon thousands of the tons have been looked over, not once but at least
four times. We must, therefore, look to other sources for the genesis
of the diamond. I have been of the opinion that diamonds crystallized
in very much the same way as quartz or other minerals, but under
peculiar circumstances possibly of pressure and heat."
My
belief is that in some unknown manner carbon, which existed very deep
in the internal regions of the earth, was changed from its black
appearance to the most beautiful gem ever seen by man; this was no
doubt due to high temperature and pressure.
As
a gem mineral the diamond is in so many ways an unusual substance that
we are fully justified in considering it as standing alone among the
gems, in a class apart. Diamond is composed of a single element,
carbon. Thus it is chemically the simplest of all gems.
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