THE ROMANCE OF THE DIAMOND 1 



BY SIR WILLIAM CROOKES, D. Sc., F. R. S. 



FROM the earliest times, the diamond has fascinated man- 

 kind. It has been a perennial puzzle one of the "riddles 

 of the painful earth. " Speculations as to the probable 

 origin of the diamond have been greatly forwarded by 

 patient research, and particularly by improved means of 

 obtaining high temperatures, an advance we owe prin- 

 cipally to the researches of Professor Moissan. 



There is one theory of the origin of diamonds which 

 appeals to the fancy. It is said that the diamond is a gift 

 from Heaven, conveyed to earth in meteoric showers. The 

 suggestion, I believe, was first broached by A. Meydendauer, 

 who said : 



The diamond can only be of cosmic origin, having fallen as a 

 meteorite at later periods of the earth's formation. The available 

 localities of the diamond contain the residues of not very compact 

 meteoric masses, which may, perhaps, have fallen in prehistoric 

 ages, and which have penetrated more or less deeply, according to 

 the more or less resistant character of the surface where they fell. 

 Their remains are crumbling away on exposure to the air and sun, 

 and the rain has long ago washed away all prominent masses. The 

 enclosed diamonds have remained scattered in the river-beds, while 

 the fine, light matrix has been swept away. 



According to this hypothesis, the so-called volcanic pipes 

 peculiar to all diamond mines are simply holes bored in the 

 solid earth by the impact of monstrous meteors the larger 

 masses boring the holes, while the smaller masses, disinte- 

 grating in their fall, distributed diamonds broadcast. 



Bizarre as such a theory appears, I am bound to admit 



1 Published in yorth American Revirw, March, 1908. 

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