SOOT AND DIAMONDS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXX, Issue 21478, 29 April 1933, Page 6 (Supplement)

SOOT AND DIAMONDS

HIDDEN BEAUTY It is difficult to associate tho chim-ney-sweep's bag of soot with a tiara of diamonds, or with such wonderful jewels .as the Star of India, the Kohinooij, and the Culinan Diamond, yet the scientist tells us they are both mado of the samo material—carbon. Thus tho thing that soils and defiles may become, by a wonderful process of Nature, tho thing that adorns. Similarly, it is one of tho marvels of Nature that tho most beautiful and radiant dyes come from coal tar. From tho very substance that is strewn upon tho public highway to keep down the dust coino tho purplo of kings and tho drapery of palaces. A sculptor and his friend were rambling through the mountains of Italy when they came upon a fallen mass of rock, jagged and shapeless, which had taken the form, by accident, of a horrible antediluvian monster, crouching to spring upon them. " It looks like a dragon," said the sculptor's friend. " Yes," said tho sculptor, " but 1 can see an angel in it, for though so rough and rugged it is a block of purest marble." And not, only did ho see an angel in. that block of marble, but ho brought the angel out with his mallet and chisel—ono of the masterpieces of the world.