the Diamond from Anthracite and Graphite. 339 
melted cast-iron (the solitary liquid which dissolves it in any 
quantity) as graphite, not as diamond ; so that we are appa- 
rently precluded from supposing that it can have been ob- 
tained, by any of the three processes by which we ordinarily 
erystallise bodies artificially, and have reason to believe they 
are crystallised in nature. 
To Liebig alone, so far as I know, among recent chemists, 
we are indebted for the publication of a new theory of the 
origin of diamonds. After explaining the slow oxidation, or 
eremacausis, as he names it, of woody fibre, when it is un- 
dergoing decay, he points out that the other elements of the 
wood are removed in much greater proportion than the car- 
bon, which comes to preponderate more and more the fur- 
ther decay has proceeded. He then adds: “ If we suppose 
decay to proceed in a /iguid containing carbon and hydrogen, 
then a compound with still more carbon must be formed, in 
a manner similar to the production of the crystalline colour- 
less napthalin from a gaseous compound of carbon and hy- 
drogen. And if the compound thus formed were itself to 
undergo farther decay, the final result must be the separa- 
tion of carbon in a crystalline form. 
* Science can point to no process capable of accounting 
for the origin and formation of diamonds, except the process 
of decay. Diamonds cannot be produced by the action of 
fire ; for a high temperature, and the presence of oxygen gas, 
would call into play their combustibility. But there is the 
greatest reason to believe that they are formed in the humid 
way, that is, in a liquid; and the process of decay is the only 
cause to which their formation can with probability be 
ascribed.’’* 
Liebig’s theory thus implies that the diamond is formed 
————$ $$ 
1849, p. 755.) These globules may only have been the ash of the anthracite, 
coloured by contained charcoal ; if they were pure carbon, they probably con- 
sisted of graphite, for their colour forbids the conclusion that they were minute 
diamonds. M. Jacqueline has shewn that the diamond, when suddenly exposed 
to the intense heating power of voltaic electricity, changes into coke or gra- 
phite. Other chemists have sought for special solvents of carbon, and may yet 
be successful in their search. 
* Agric, Chem.,, p. 341, 
