it
is from the "New York Evening Post" of April 28, 1855, where it says :
" We were shown yesterday, on board the steamship ' Jamestown,' what
is said to be the largest diamond ever discovered in North America. It
was found several months ago by a laboring man at Manchester, Va., in
some earth which he was digging up. It was put into a furnace for
melting iron, at Richmond, where it remained at red heat for two hours
and twenty minutes. It was then taken out and found to be uninjured and
brighter than ever. It was valued in Richmond at $4,000." This stone
next passed into the possession of Samuel W. Dewey, of Jackson, now of
Philadelphia, and by him was named the Oninoor, or " Sun of Light,"
though it has more generally been known as the Dewey diamond. It was
for a time on exhibition in New York, at the store of Ball, Black &
Co., and was cut at an expense of $1,500 by Henry D. Morse, of Boston.
Having passed out of Mr. Dewey's hands, through his failure to redeem
it on a loan, it was then sold to J. Anglist, who received from John A.
Morrissey a loan of $6,000 on it, and as he failed to redeem it, it
became part of the Morrissey estate and was known as the Morrissey
diamond. It had a large flaw on one side (see Colored Plate No. 1), and
was an octahedron with slightly rounded faces. Its original weight was
23 3/4 carats, and after cutting it weighed 11 11/16 carats. As it is
off-color and imperfect, it is to-day worth not more than from $300 to
$400. Exact copies of it in glass, as well as copper electrotypes of it
as it was found, and as cut, were deposited by Mr. Dewey in the United
States Mint at Philadelphia, and also at the Peabody Museum in New
Haven and in a number of cabinets.
North
Carolina, so rich and varied in mineral resources, has long been known
to yield a certain amount of gold ; and in the same region have been
found some diamonds, either loose in the soil, or taken from the
washings of auriferous gravel. The portion of the State which has
yielded these valuable substances is that known as the Piedmont
region,—a belt of country lying, as its name indicates, at the foot of
the mountains, along the eastern base of the Blue Ridge. The rocks here
are metamorphic and crystalline, with some Cambrian beds a little
farther west. There runs throughout much of this region a belt or belts
of itacolumite,
