|
More about Diamonds 169
|
||
|
|
||
|
utterly
spoilt by the treatment, for not only had its market value not
improved, but it looked a most uninteresting stone. Whether the colour
was permanent, no one, of course, was in a position to judge. The stone
might either gradually drift back to its original colour or change
suddenly and unpredictably. In either case the buyer was due for an
unpleasant surprise. If anyone asked my advice about such a stone I
should certainly tell him not to buy, whatever the price and however
attractive the new colour might be, for the radio-activity to which it
had been exposed is still an unknown quantity, and no one could tell
what bio-chemical changes it might bring about in the body of the
wearer, detrimental to his or her health. And if to wear a
radium-treated stone exposes the wearer to unknown dangers, the
purveyor likewise risks being mulcted of heavy damages.
Lovers
of diamonds, however, need not have much fear of buying a
radium-treated stone unawares, for such experiments are rare and
costly and only carried out to satisfy the curiosity of savants.
Likewise, the diamond-wearing classes may also calmly rejoice in their
possessions without worrying much about laboratory-made diamonds, lest
overnight some experimenter should make diamonds two a penny. Diamond
crystals of microscopic size have, indeed, been produced in the
laboratory crucible, but their cost of production stood in inverse
ratio to their dimensions, which goes to prove that a laboratory
success can be at the same time a financial disaster.
Not so many years ago, and not long enough ago for those of my generation to have forgotten the incident, a
|
||
|
|
||