Artificial Diamonds.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume XXII, Issue 6698, 16 October 1905, Page 4

Artificial Diamonds.

CAMBRIDGE DOCTOR'S DISCOVERY.

A discovery of great scientific interest in regard to the artificial production of diamonds has been made by Or C. V. Burton, a Cambridge savant, who ha 3 demonstrated the success of a new method of artificial manufacture not involving high pressure, one of the essential r'actora in the experiments formerly carried on by M. Moissan. By the new process Dr Burton has manufactured seveial hundred gems, about the identity of which he is in no doubt. Though they are of small size, their transparency is perfect; they have a high ret'raotive index, and the crystals have mostly fac-33 of the octahedron, modifiod by the cube and dodecahedron, or, in other words, they possess the well known characteristics of the natural gem. " The process," explained Dr Burton, " is one which involves the employment of a molten alloy of lead with about one per cent of calcium holding ia solution a proportion of carbon." "It seems," he added, " to be the calcium which enables the carbon to remain in solution. When the calcium is removed by chemical action, the carbon crystallises out as a diamond. Alluding to the suggesti >n that the new dicovery might lead to the profitable pro ductioa of artificial diamonds, Dr Uurfcon Baid :— " There was no such idea contemplated. The results are only tentative ; the experiments are only in a preliminary stage, and certainly, so far as it looks at present, the research only promises to be of scientific interest."