Ch. 14: Synthetic Man Made Diamonds

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	THE BOOK OF DIAMONDS devised by the above mentioned student makes use of a sieve to produce globules of the desired size. The name given to this method is the "Drop Shot". The first piece of equipment necessary is a sieve that will stand molten metal. Fifteen holes were drilled in the bottom of a graphite crucible, exactly like the one used in the furnace. Against the bottom is directed the hottest possible flame of a compressed air-natural gas blast lamp. This is to prevent too rapid cooling of the fused metal which will not solidify in the sieve before running through and producing drop shot. Fifty-seven pounds of iron were melted by the Hutchinson Foundry and at the same time it was poured, a pint of sugar carbon was mixed with the melted iron to see whether any of the sugar carbon would crystallize into diamonds. The purpose of trying this method instead of the usual one was to see whether we might get larger stones by using larger quantities of iron. After the iron had solidified it was dissolved in hydrochloric acid. It required over a year to complete the solution. The residue was then washed and searched for diamonds. Several dozen transparent crystals the size of an average pin head were found. Treating these with pure hydrofluoric acid failed to dissolve them in twenty-four hours, but after thirty-six hours they began to become somewhat soft. This proved that they could not be diamonds. They could not be the ordinary quartz since they remained in hydrofluoric acid for over a day without dissolving. They are probably minerals as spinels or corundum. 138

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