HOW TO MAKE DIAMONDS.

Evening Star, Issue 10399, 21 August 1897, Page 1 (Supplement)

HOW TO MAKE DIAMONDS.

In a recent lecture at the Royal Institution Mr William Crookes said that, thanks to Professor Moissan, diamonds could now be manufactured in the laboratory—minutely microscopic, it was' true, but with crystalline form and appearance, color, hardness, and action on light the same as the natural gem. The first necessity was to select pure iron and to pack it in a carbon crucible with pure charcoal from sugar. Half a pound of this iron was put into the body of the electric furnace, and a powerful arc, absorbing about 100 horse-power, formed close above it between carbon poles. The iron rapidly melted and saturated itself with carbon. After a few minutes heating to a temperature above 4,oooJeg C. the current was stopped, and the dazzling fiery crucible plunged in cold water until it cooled below a red heat. Iron increased in volume at the moment of passing from the liquid to the solid state ; hence the expansion of the inner liquid on solidifying-produced an enormous pressure, under stress of which the dissolved carbon separated out in a transparent, dense, crystalline form—in fact, as diamonds. To obtain the diamond from the metallic ingot required a long and tedious process of treatment with various strong reagents, and the largest artificial diamond yet made was less than one millimetre across. Many circumstances pointed, said the lecturer, to the conclusion that the diamond of the chemist and the diamond of the mine were strangely akin in origin.

A judge, in crossing the Irish Channel one stormy night, knocked against a wellknown witty lawyer, who was suffering terribly from seasickness. “ Can Ido anything for you ?” asked the judge, “ Yes,” gasped the seasick lawyer. “I wish you would overrule this motion.”

An improvement on the cyclometer is a device which not only registers the distance travelled, but records the speed of travel and tho time consumed. It can be attached to the wheel of any vehicle.