43^ 



• KNOWLEDGE ♦ 



[May 22, 1885. 



of Love must be the compound image of many attractive 

 and lovable women. Wisdom will be symbolised by the 

 ideal portrait of a sage, and divine majeaty by the union 

 of those outward attributes which mark the bom kings of 

 And since the qualities to be thus represented are 



such as have been gained through ages of evolution, and 

 are therefore advantageous to the race, their physical cor- 

 relates will be proportionately valued ; till at last the 

 reason for admiration is forgotten, and prosaic utilitarianism 

 merges into a^thetio adoration. Yet the incarnation must 

 never lose its soul, and degenerate into simple fleshliness : 

 the more perfect the sj-mbol, the more perfect the beauty. 



With Christianity comes the gradual development of a 

 more sjiiritual and emotional character, not to be typified 

 save by the manifold expressiveness of painting. It would 

 be out of my province to attempt even a sketch of the 

 progress of Christian art, from the stiflf outlines in the 

 Catacomb.?, to the awaking, but still fettered, genius of 

 Cimabue and Giotto, and the full freedom of Michelangelo 

 and Raphael. But it is Raphael's glory that he has satis- 

 fied the three demands which the human soul addresses to 

 its artistic ministers ; he has stimulated the eye by rich 

 colour and contrast of light and shade; he has gratified 

 the love of life by his healthful mothers and chubby 

 infitnts ; he has responded to the emotional instinct by 

 suggestions of tender human feeling in his Madonnas, and 

 of rapt ideal devotion in his wondrous St. Cecilia. 



I need say little about the taste for the " picturesque " 

 and the rise of the landscape art, since here I fully agree 

 with Mr. Grant Allen.* He points out that the primitive 

 love of beauty is never evoked except by an object more or 

 less closely connected with some physical need. The bird 

 concentrates its attention on its own species, and does not 

 trouble itself, so far as we know, about the unpractical 

 beauties of sky and sea. Primitive man takes the liveliest 

 interest in the decoration of his weapons and tools, and in 

 those natural objects which he can use as ornaments for his 

 person ; then he begins to take pride in adorning the home, 

 the palace, and the temple ; when he cultivates the ground, 

 his orchard and garden are jileasing in his eyes; and, finally, 

 when travel has become easy, and the mountain, the pre- 

 cipice, the ravine, the glacier, the forest, the sea, are no 

 longer symbols of weariness and terror, of cold and hunger, 

 of long toilsome journeys amid savage tribes, he at last 

 feels a free and fearless pleasure in the lines and lights and 

 hues of landscape and seascape. 



If I have succeeded in nothing else, I think I have at 

 least indicated the difficulty and complication of my .sub- 

 ject. Our ideal of beauty has not been miraculously cast 

 down from the skies as a golden image to be worshipped 

 for ever and ever. It is a growing organism, sprung from 

 simple germs, always evolving into more complex forms, 

 varying, like all organisms, with its position in time and 

 space, and with all the conditions which surround it. 

 Every change in climate, in custom, in morality, in govern- 

 ment, in religion, has left its trace on this sensitive part 

 of our nature. There is no warrior, no ruler, no anarchist, 

 no saint, no philu.sopher, no man of science, who has not, 

 consciously or unconsciously, influenced its growth. Not a 

 need, or emotion, or illu.'iion, but has helped to mould the 

 private and public ideal. 



The very intolerance which makes the resthetic reformer 

 pose as a prophet, and deliver the burden of the Lord 

 against his fellow.s, may often be a sign or a source of 

 strength ; the very tolerance with which the eclectic art- 

 critic admits the merits of all styles and schools, may be 

 only the last flower of weakness. Yet there should be 



* ".Esthetic Evolution in Man" {Mind, October, 1880). 



times when the veriest specialist in art looks up from his 

 own little valley, and, beholding the mountains which 

 surround it, dimly believes that from its heights may be 

 seen rivers and plains and seas, and a broader heaven. 



THE ORIGIN AND HOME OF THE 

 DIAMOND. 



By W. Jerome Harrison, F.G.S. 

 THE DIAMOND IS SOUTH AFRICA. 



IN the year 18G7, the news that diamonds had been 

 discovered in Soutli Africa was received in Europe 

 with much surprise and some incredulity. The site of the 

 first diamond-diggings was in the gravel deposited by the 

 Paver Vaal along its course in Griqualand West, not far 

 from its junction with the Orange River. The richness of 

 these " river diggings," with the good quality and size of 

 the stones, soon attracted hordes of miners, who traced 

 the diamond-bearing gravels along about 200 miles of the 

 course of the Vaal. But in the river-gravels the diamond is 

 clearly but a "lodger" ; it lies with thecountless other pebbles, 

 of all sorts and sizes, all swept away from their parent 

 rocks by rain and frost and the current of the stream. Men 

 reasoned that if the precious stone was so plentiful in these 

 gravels, its true home — the rock in which it was formed — 

 could not be far off, and they searched the country round 

 with a keenness which deserved to be, and which was, 

 richly rewarded. 



By the year 1871 four points — Du Toit's Pan, De 

 Beers, Bultfontein, and Kimberley — had been discovered 

 where diamonds were found in the solid rock. These four 

 diamond-mines — or " dry diggings," as they are called, in. 

 contradiction to the " river diggings " — lay close together 

 about 24 miles south of the River Vaal. They are 

 5.50 miles north-east of Cape Town, and 350 miles 

 west of D'LTrban (Port Natal). Two other mines 

 have since been found at Koffy Fontein and Jager's 

 Fontein, about fifty miles east of Kimberley, in the 

 Orange Free State. So vigorously has the search been 

 conducted, and so numerous have been the " finds," that 

 diamonds to the estimated value of thirty million pounds 

 sterling have already been obtained from these South 

 African mines. This great influx of precious stones from 

 a British colony has led to the introduction of diamond- 

 cutting as an English industry, and the diamond-cutters of 

 Clerkenwell are now considered fully equal in skill to those 

 of Amsterdam. 



To understand the mode of occurrence of the diamond in 

 its matrix, we must briefly describe the geology of the 

 country. Commencing on the west coast at Port NoUoth, 

 an ancient rock, called gneiss, forms the surface for 300 

 miles as we walk eastward. It is then overlain by meta- 

 morphic schists ; and above these, forming a level plateau 

 5,000 ft. above sea-level, come the Kimberley shales. These 

 shales vary from blue to black in colour, are of considerable 

 thickness, and appear to have been deposited in the bed 

 of a large lake or lakes, resembling those which now occur 

 in Central Africa. Fossil ferns and thin seams of coal are 

 common in the shales, whose precise geological age is un- 

 certain, although the probabilities are that they belong to 

 the period of the Trias or New Red Sandstone. At some 

 period after their formation, the consolidated hardened muds 

 or shales were invaded by melted rocks, forced up from 

 below, doubtless by the agency of steam, which is now 

 known to play the jirincipal part in volcanic disturbances. 

 These igneous or fire formed rocks traverse the shales as fiat 



