DIAMONDS.

Timaru Herald, Volume XLIII, Issue 3744, 1 October 1886, Page 3

DIAMONDS.

« Where the dinmoud comes from nobody knows. You can no more predict the existence of diamonds than jou can the existence of genius, thougli to bo sure nil diamond (ioUls, to n certain extent, resemble, each oilier: and all borrowing 113 they do their iight from tho sun, are found only m wnrm climates. Nor can you tell wln-re t ! 0 diamond fv>es to on combustion. Burn ituml it lenves no itsh ; the flame is rxlerior like Unit of cork, and when il bn3 blnzed out there remains not even as much 113 would dust tho antemi.e of a butterfly. If :i man lias his mysteries, his atrnngo conversions, his going m a sinner, his coining out a saint, co too has Nature. The philosopher's stone is formed of tho vilest materials, and the chitimcy-snrecp is covered with tli.it whieli, under happier auspice?, would be jowt-ls. Tlii< mysterious proceis of erysl.iHisation places between two bodies of tho sum! nature 11 greater difference than bet wren bodies differently composed. And yet not so great n mystery either, for evenyear a process i? discovered for malting dinninnds -only somehow the diamonds are never made--or at best, so microscopic, and at such an cnoiinons expense that they arc absolutely meiess, except to gum on cards at the British Museum. In Krnnco they say a solution of phosph-MiHinsulphiirct, of carbon yields minute, diamond?, but that these thing* are bctlcr managed there than here has been long allowed.- CnrnhHl Mnrinzhis for August.