finding
at his placer mine, in Rutherford county, of a diamond of bad color,
which was pronounced a diamond and placed in the Amherst College
collection by Prof. C. U. Shepard. The same article also
mentions a One white diamond, valued at $400, found in a South
Carolina placer by Mr. Twitfy, and states that Mr. Twitty has a diamond
weighing 3 grains in his possession which was taken in White county,
Georgia, from a "long torn."
In
the cabinet of Mr. Samuel R. Carter, of Paris, Maine, are two small
crystals of diamond weighing less than one-eighth carat, which were
found in March, 18CG, at the Horshaw placer gold mine, Eacoocbee
valley, White county, Georgia, one by Dr. A. C. Hamlin(a), of Baugor,
and the other by Mr. H. Ashbury. They are opaque and have no definite
form. Several stones of fine quality have been found here.
At
the May, 1867, meeting of the California Academy of Sciences Prof. B.
Silliman exhibited four diamonds found in California. One, from Forest
Hill, El Dorado county, weighing 0.309 gram (= 5.673 grains = 1-1/2
carats), was of good color with a small cavity and a discol-oration on
one of the solid angles. This crystal, which was not entirely
symmetrical, was found at a great depth from the surface, in a tunnel
running into the auriferous gravel at Forest Hill. Another was found at
French Corral, in Nevada county, weighing 0.3375 gram (= 5.114 grains =
1-1/4 carats). It was very symmetrical in form, remarkably free from
flaws, and slightly yellowish, its color having been altered by having
been subjected to a red heat. It had been found in the deep gold
washings and was thrown out from the cement. The third was the property
of Mr. M. W. Belshaw, weighing 0.2345 gram (= 3.619 grains, little less
than 1 carat). This crystal is distorted, and has several reentering
angles and cavities. Four others besides this have been found in the
search for gold at Fiddletown, Amador county, in the gray cemented
gravel underlying a stratum of so-called lava or compact ashes. The
other one shown was the property of Mr. George E. Smith, who states
that it was found at Cherokee Flat, Butte county, and that he had seen
hilly fifteen diamonds from this locality; these were all found iu the
deep gravel washings, and were believed to have come from a stratum 3
feet thick, forming part of a superincumbent mass of material 25 feet
thick. Mr. Remond (6) is quoted as authority for the occurrence of
diamonds at Volcano, which may be the same locality as Fiddletown.
Professor Whitney at this meeting stated that diamonds had been found
at from fifteen to twenty localities in California, the largest that
had come to his notice weighing 7-1/4 carats, having been found at
French Corral.
Prof.
B. Silliman (c) mentions that platinum, almandine garnet, chro-mite,
epidote, gold, hidosmine, limonite, magnetite, pyrite, quartz, rutile,
