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GEMS.
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a phlogistic material in a particular condition. Val-mont-Bomare calls it " the purest rock crystal."
Boëce
de Boot, in 1609, suspected that the diamond was an inflammable body.
Boyle, in 1673, succeeded in burning it. Newton, in 1704, having
measured its refracting force, and found it greater in proportion to
its density, compared with other gems, placed it immediately amongst
combustibles.
Averani
and Targioni, in the Florentine Academy of Cimento, made some fine
experiments on the diamond, tending to prove Newton's opinion.
The celebrated Lavoisier proved the true nature of the diamond, and declared it to be carbon.
In
the year 1800 Clouet, Weiler, and Hachette, placing in a crucible sixty
parts of iron and one of diamond, and holding it to an intense fire,
obtained a piece of most perfect steel ; which proved that the diamond
combines chemically with iron, and therefore that it is a carbon. In
progress of time similar experiments were many times repeated, and all
demonstrated that the diamond resolves itself in carbonic gas.
Brewster
believes it to be composed of vegetable elements. Arago holds it to be
an hydrogenated carbon ; Davy finally has decided that it is an
oxygenized carbon.
It has never been precisely declared who first discovered the diamond, and by what nation its value was first known and prized.
It is said that the Etruscans, by means of their commerce with the interior of Africa, knew it, and
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