REMARKABLE DIAMONDS AND GEMS (Continued) BORT OR BOART
Some
diamonds are dark gray, and even black. They exhibit a more or less
imperfectly crystalline structure, and are known as black diamonds,
bort (boart), or carbonado. Boart is an imperfectly crystallized,
translucent, dark-colored diamond which has various colors, but no
clear portions, and is therefore useless as a gem. Boart is used in
drilling of rocks and in cutting and polishing other stones. Boart and
carbonado are usually regarded as forms intermediate between diamonds
and graphite.
When
we think of a white stone we instinctively visualize a diamond,
because this gem alone among the galaxy of brilliant colored stones is
notably without color. However, we should not attempt to analyze the
appeal of the diamond in terms of its white color because it is the
brilliance of its reflection that constitutes its appeal and not the
color of purity and innocence which white suggests. The appeal of the
diamond is one of ostentation, of glamour, and of display. In the
Occidental world at least the wearing of diamonds belongs to a culture
already well advanced. There are no European myths that link the
diamond with romances of early centuries. It is far too
sophisticated, too hardly brilliant in its glitter to measure
emotions in primitive terms.
