DEATH OF A REMARKABLE MAN.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1208, 24 July 1884, Page 3

DEATH OF A REMARKABLE MAN.

Georges Auguste Leschot, who died at Paris on February 4th at the age of 64 years, was a very remarkable man, It is to him we owe the plan of employing the Black Brazilian diamonds, or “carbonados,” for piercing rocks, an invention which has proved of immense value. Leacbot was the son of a skilful mechanician, Jean Fredric Leschot by name, whose automatic singing birds, artificial limbs, and so on, were the admiration of the celebrated Yaucanson, He also effected great improvement in the manufacture of watches bj mechanical means, in connection with the Geneva bouse of Vachoron and Constanstine, receiving in 1845 a prize from the FreiHi .V'ad'Mny of Sciences in recognition "fhia services. In 1861, the black amorpuuus, but very hard diamond of Brazil, known as “ carbonados,” came to Europe, and Leschot s son, being then engaged in Italian railway work for the house of Vitali Picard et Cie, knowing the idea of his father that diamonds might be used instead of steel tools to cat rocks (an idea which had occurred to him in examining the fine striations cut in some specimens of ancient red porphyry) communicated with his father on the subject, and the result was that Leschot devised the diamond perforator, which has been in use ever since, especially in England, Germany and America.