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Sec. II, Ch. 2: The African Diamond

Sec. II, Ch. 2: The African Diamond Page of 366 Sec. II, Ch. 2: The African Diamond Text size:minus plus Restore normal size   Mail page  Print this page
African Diamonds.
77
to the pebble, that when wanted it was nowhere to be found ; and it was only after diligent search that it was at last discovered outside the house, just where it had happened to fall when the child had last used it as a plaything. Van Niekirk was sorely puzzled with the stone, yet thinking that it might possibly have some value, offered to buy it of Mrs. Jacobs. The good woman laughed at the notion of selling so common a stone, and at once gave it to the enquiring farmer.
Just then it chanced that Mr. J. O'Reilly was returning from an expedition in the interior, and to him Van Niekirk confided the stone, with a request that he would endeavour to ascertain its nature from any trustworthy mineralogist whom he might meet. By O'Reilly the stone was taken to the town of Colesberg. Few people at this time believed that Diamonds occurred in South Africa, and when O'Reilly cut his initials on a window-pane of the hotel at Colesberg, it was supposed that he was using simply a fragment of common quartz or rock crystal.
Notwithstanding the ridicule of the bystanders.O'Reilly clung bravely to the notion that he had got a Diamond and he afterwards showed the stone to Mr. Lorenzo Boyes, the Clerk of the Peace of the district. Mr, Boyes knew that his friend, Dr. G. W. Atherstone, of Graham's Town, was an excellent mineralogist ; and, anxious to get his opinion, he sent the enigmatical stone through the post, accompanied by an explanatory- letter. When it reached Graham's Town, the good doctor had some difficulty in deciding what the curious pebble could be, and he consulted Bishop Ricard. After carefully examining its physical characteristics, after testing its degree of hardness, its density, and its behaviour when subjected to optical tests by means of polarized light, they were bold enough to
Sec. II, Ch. 2: The African Diamond Page of 366 Sec. II, Ch. 2: The African Diamond
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