Ch. 2: Men and Mines

Page of 281

Text size:



	CHAPTER II

	MEN AND MINES

	(28:17) "And thou shalt set in settings of stones, even four rows of stones: the first row shall be a saidius, a topaz and a carbuncle: this shall be the first row. (18) "And the second row shall be an emerald, a sapphire, and a diamond." Book of Exodus

	It would seem that the first known recorded mention of diamonds was in the Old Testament of the Holy Bible in. the approximate year of 1700 b.c. Pliny the Younger, of course, wrote considerably about them, but that was much later. In wondering where diamonds first were discovered, we are interested to note that he talks of stones found among the river sands of India. Actually, they have appeared in many scattered parts of the world, but not with consistency or frequency except, perhaps, in South Africa. (So far as any of us know, diamond mining as an industry originated in India some time between 800 and 600 b.c. Peninsular India was the only known source of diamonds for about twelve hundred years after that. Persia comes into the picture once in a while, but vaguely. About 600 a.d. diamonds were discovered in Borneo, and in the eighteenth century fields were found in Brazil, although today the Brazilian fields have declined, being eclipsed by the great African fields, biggest producers of diamonds in the history of the world. (21)

Page of 281