100 THE MAGIC OF JEWELS AND CHARMS
microscopic
diamonds in this meteorite, and later investigations by Prof. Henri
Moissan confirmed this discovery and enlarged its scope. A mass of the
iron weighing about 400 pounds was used by Professor Moissan; this was
cut by means of a steel ribbon saw. As had been the case in Koenig's
investigations, the saw soon encountered excessively hard portions
that obstructed its operation, so that twenty days' labor was requisite
to separate the iron into two parts, each with a section area of nearly
100 square inches. On close examination it became evident that the
obstacles to the cutting consisted of round or elliptical nodules, of
a dark gray to black hue, and enclosed in the bright iron. These
nodules were mainly composed of troilite (iron pro-tosulphide). After
chemical treatment an insoluble residue remained, consisting of silica,
amorphous carbon, graphite and diamond. Many of these very minute
diamonds were black, but a few were transparent crystals, octahedrons
with rounded edges.81 The presence of this diamond material
in the interior of the iron mass of the meteorite indicates their
formation from carbon by the combined agencies of high temperature and
great pressure, as in the case of the artificial diamonds
experimentally produced by Moissan in an iron mass first subjected to
intense heat in tho electric furnace and then rapidly contracted in
volume by sudden chilling. The fervid imagination of early writers
would certainly have attributed wonderful talismanic powers to stones
like these, probably generated in some lost planet and reaching our
earth through the wastes of celestial space, could they have been able
to observe and distinguish them with the incomplete optical resources
of their time.
The first announcement of the discovery of these dia-
β
See Henri Moissan; " Étude de la météorite de Canon Diablo," Comptée
Rendus de l'Académie des Sciences, vol. cxvi (1893), pp. 288 sqq.; see
also his paper on the Ovifak meteorite, Comptes Rendus, vol. eaod
(1895), pp. 483 sqq.
