DIAMOND MAKING.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXIX, Issue 146, 19 June 1908, Page 4

DIAMOND MAKING.

Apparently M. Lemoine has found his self-imposed task of producing diamonds for judicial inspection rather more difficult than he anticipated. Our readers are probably familiar with the facts of the case, and we need only remind them that after Lemoine had been charged with fraud, he was released on condition that within a certain time he would give the Court proof of his ability to carry out his promises to Sir Julius Wernher. In the meantime the envelope which was supposed to contain Lemoine's recipe was handed over to the Court by the banker, with whom it was deposited. Now, the stipulated time having elapsed, Lemoine fails to appear when called upon, and the envelope, being opened, is found to contain a formula which is described by expert chemists as "an excellent hoax." No doubt Lemoine will be arrested, and his attempt to escape certainly intensifies the unpleasant impression produced by the revelation of his boasted recipe for diamond-making. But, in spite of all this, we have to remember that a good many competent judges have publicly declared that they believe Lemoine's pretensions to be well foumjed. In the first place, it is highly improbable that an experienced financier and expert judge of diamonds like Sir Julius Wernher would have advanced an unknown adventurer like Lemoine £64,000 without positive proof that he really could perform what he promised. Then we have the testimony of Lord Armstrong, which is as circumstantial and definite as any court could wish. "M. Lemoine," he says, ''handed mc a powder, which, in order to convince myself, I worked up with my fingers. It was nothing but a powder. I myself put thig powder into an empty crucible, which I closed again, and I personally put the crucible into the furnace. When, under the instruction of 51. Lemoine, who stood some distance from mc, and could in no way interfere in the operation, I withdrew the crucible, I found it in an agglomerated mass, which I allowed to cool before my ej-es. I myself broke this shapeless mass, which presented the appearance of carbonised matter, anu more I found these pure diamonds and these other diamonds less perfect."

In support of his statement, Lord Armstrong produced a number of small diamonds, all of the purest water, which had been valued at five dollars the carat. Asked as to his impressions, Lord Armstrong replied that it was not a question of impressions, but of facts. "I have the conviction," he repeated, "that Lemoine has actually succeeded in making the diamond, and that he is at this moment the object of unjust calumnies." Nor is Lemoine's alleged feat by any means antecedently improbable. Since Moissan's electric furnace was invented, several experimenters have succeeded in producing diamonds from carbon in various forms, and there, is nothing incredible in the supposition thai Lemoine's claims *re well founded. In that case we must, of course, assume that the now notorious recipe is merely a blind to put imitators off the track. But whether he is a scientific genius or a charlatan, Lemoine has at least had the satisfaction of knowing that he has been the central figure in one of the most sensational criminal (romances of the day.