miners
know that gems are sometimes thus found. The value of the Dysortville
diamond as a jewel will hardly represent the interest that attaches to
it as a local specimen of large size and fine appearance.
The
foregoing list includes all the authentic diamonds thus far discovered
in North Carolina. A number of small stones, exhibited as diamonds,
have been found at Brackettstown. They are similar to supposed diamonds
found by J. C. Mills at his mine at Brindletown, but these were
transparent zircon or smoky-colored quartz, the former of which has a
lustre readily mistaken by an inexperienced person for that of a
diamond. A number of pieces of rough diamond, exhibited as from the
same section, have been decided to be of South African, not Carolinian,
origin. It is to be hoped that the few legitimate discoveries actually
made in this locality will not lead to deceptions, which would greatly
retard any natural development of interest. It is quite possible that
diamonds may be found widely distributed throughout the auriferous belt
of the Carolinas and northern Georgia; and that, in the often rude and
hurried methods of gold-washing employed, they may have been
overlooked in the past, and now lie buried in the piles of sand that
stretch for miles along the water-courses.
It
would naturally be expected that in the extension of the Piedmont
region through the extreme northwestern part of South Carolina, the
same possibilities of diamond discoveries would exist. The reports are
few and uncertain. Mr. Leven-thorpe, already referred to, has stated,
in writing to the " New York Sun," that in 1883 D. J. Twitty, of
Spartanburg, had a fine diamond valued at some $400, that was obtained
from a place in South Carolina. He had it cut and mounted as a stud;
but it was unfortunately stolen from him while riding in a car in New
York City. The loss of so interesting a specimen is much more than that
of an ordinary diamond of the same gem value.
On
passing into Georgia the same metamorphic belt, with its localities for
gold, itacolumite, and to some extent diamonds, extends across the
State to the Alabama line. The counties in which diamonds are claimed
to have been found are Habersham, White, Banks, Lumpkin, Hall, Forsyth,
Gwinnett, Cobb, Clay-
