EMIGRANT DIAMONDS IN AMERICA. 77 



recently found in the clays and gravels of this region, where their 

 distribution was such as to indicate with a degree of approximation 

 the location of their distant ancestral home. 



In order clearly to set forth the nature of this problem and 

 the method of its solution it will be necessary, first, to plot upon 

 a map of the lake region the locality at which each of the stones 

 has been found, and, further, to enter upon the same map the 

 data which geologists have gleaned regarding the work of the great 

 ice cap of the Glacial period. During this period, not remote as 

 geological time is reckoned, an ice mantle covered the entire north- 

 eastern portion of our continent, and on more than one occasion 

 it invaded for considerable distances the territory of the United 

 States. Such a map as has been described discloses an important 

 fact which holds the clew for the detection of the ancestral home 

 of these diamonds. Each year is bringing with it new evidence, 

 and we may look forward hopefully to a full solution of the 

 problem. 



In 1883 the " Eagle Stone " was brought to Milwaukee and sold 

 for the nominal sum of one dollar. When it was submitted to 

 competent examination the public learned that it was a diamond 

 of sixteen carats' weight, and that it had been discovered seven 

 years earlier in earth removed from a well-opening. Two events 

 which were calculated to arouse local interest follow^ed directly 

 upon the discovery of the real nature of this gem, after which it 

 passed out of the public notice. The woman who had parted with 

 the gem for so inadequate a compensation brought suit against the 

 jeweler to whom she had sold it, in order to recover its value. 

 This curious litigation, which naturally aroused a great deal of 

 interest, was finally carried to the Supreme Court of the State of 

 Wisconsin, from which a decision was handed down in favor of 

 the defendant, on the ground that he, no less than the plaintiff, 

 had been ignorant of the value of the gem at the time of purchas- 

 ing it. The other event was the " boom " of the town of Eagle 

 as a diamond center, which, after the finding of two other diamonds 

 with unmistakable marks of African origin upon them, ended as 

 suddenly as it had begun, with the effect of temporarily discredit- 

 ing, in the minds of geologists, the genuineness of the original 

 " find." 



Ten years later a white diamond of a little less than four carats' 

 weight came to light in a collection of pebbles found in Oregon, 

 Wisconsin, and brought to the writer for examination. The stones 

 had been found by a farmer's lad while playing in a clay bank near 

 his home. The investigation of the subject which was thereupon 

 made brought out the fact that a third diamond, and this the largest 



