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UNITED STATES, CANADA AND MEXICO
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31
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Blackfoot,
Deer Lodge County, Mont. It was panned out by a Chinaman, who handed it
to Edward Mason, one of the owners of the claim. The latter did not
regard it as of any particular value and left it lying about his cabin.
Afterward, while on a visit to Helena, he showed the stone to a
jeweler, who examined it and made several offers to purchase it. These
Mr. Mason declined, suspecting that the stone was of greater value than
he had imagined. He subsequently came to New York, and submitted it to
a diamond-broker, who pronounced it a true diamond. According to a
recent article in the Butte " Inter-Mountain," the stone is retained in
its natural state by Mr. Mason.
A
few years ago reports were started of the finding of diamonds in
central Kentucky. Prof. Edward Orton, the State Geologist of Ohio, made
a visit to that district, and found that it presented certain
resemblances to the diamond-bearing region of South Africa. He found
dykes of trap-rock (peridotite) breaking through fissures in shale,
and spreading to some extent over the adjacent country. Garnets and
other associated minerals derived from the decomposition of the
peridotite were found, suggesting the possibility of a diamond yield,
from the similarity of the conditions to those of Africa Similar
investigations and results were reported by A. R. Crandall.1
It had been previously suggested by E. J. Dunn, E. Cohen, H.
Huddleston, and Rupert Jones that the South African diamonds were
formed in a sort of volcanic mud. Mr. Huddleston thought that the
action was hydrothermal rather than igneous, the diamonds resulting
from the action of steam in contact with magnesian mud, under pressure,
upon carbonaceous shales, and compared the rock to boiled plum-pudding.
At
a meeting of the Manchester Literary and Philosophic Society, held in
October, 1884, Sir Henry E. Roscoe presented a paper on the
diamond-bearing rocks of South Africa, in which he said that he had
noticed a peculiar odor, somewhat like that of camphor, which was
evolved on treating the soft " blue " diamond earth with hot water. He
powdered a quantity of this earth and digested it with ether ; and
after filtering and evaporating, he ob-
1 Note on the Peridotite of Elliott County, Ky., Am. J. Sci. EL, Vol. 32, p. 121, Aug. 1886.
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