SIR CHARLES PARSONS.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 28 June 1924, Page 16

SIR CHARLES PARSONS.

GIVES UP THE SEARCH FOR ARTIFICIAL DIAMONDS. LONDON, April 25. The new era m physical research in which Sir Ernest Rutherford has played so large a part seems to the layman to bring us a step nearer that transmutation of Laser metals into gold which was the aim of the ancient alchemists If, as it would appear, the so-called elements are merely changed groupings of nucleus and electrons, this discovery, we suppose, may he followed by that of a means to effect artificially these groupings and regroupings within the atoms of different elements. by, side with this goes on intensive w;ork towards the creation of synthetic compounds, and that of creating from some of the numerous forms of carbon its most valuable form —diamonds —has been by some researchers taken up very seriously. I myself know of one successful prewar attempt made by Dr. Burton at the Cavendish laboratories, but the success was so expensive and the resulting diamond so tiny that Dr. Burton gave it up. Now we learn that Sir Charles Parsons —more widely known as the inventor of the turbine —has for over twenty years been seeking to solve the mystery of the origin of the diamond, and he confessed at a meeting of the Royal Microscopical Society that, after spending thousands of oouuds in his search for a solution, he had been forced to the conclusion that the manufacture of artificial diamonds was impossible Many eminent scientists have tried to make diamonds in the laboratory, and some have claimed, among them the late Dr. Charles Burton, to have succeeded.

The late Sir William Crookes gave the apparently simple formula for manufacture of diamonds when he'said that the process consisted simply of dissolving charcoal (for a diamond is just charcoal, or graphite) in a liquid, and waiting for the dissolved substance to separate into crystals by slow evaporation. The ultimate crystals would, he said, be true diamonds. Nature thus transforms carbon into diamnods by subjecting it to enormous pressure and temperature in the earth. The French chemist, Henri Moissan, subjected carbon to temperature around 3600 degrees Centigrade and pressures exceeding fifteen tons to the square inch. The crusible containing the- iron and carbon was then plunged into cold water, which had the effect of solidifying the iron which enclosed the carbon in a giant grip. In this condition the dissolved carbon separated out -a.s hard, transparent crystalline- fr agments, in- < distinguishable from a trug diamond. But the largest “diamond” Moissan was able to produce was scarcely visible to the naked eve; fifty side by side could be comfortably accommodated in the. space ■of one inch. Sir illiam Crookes himself was convinced that Moissan’s crystals were true diamonds, and later reneated the French chemist’s exneriment. with similar results. Sir Charles Parsons, after his twenty years’ labours, has admitted his failure, for he has expressed the opinion that the microscopic crystals obtained by MoisJ san and Crookes were not diamonds, but carborundum or silicon compounds.