254 Diamond in North Carolina. 
Twitty’s mine in Rutherford Co.; which mine is situated in 
the Itacolumite region I had designated in the communication 
above referred to. Mr. Clingman thus refers to it in a letter da- 
ted Feb. 17th, 1846. “By the desire of Mr. Twitty, I have en- 
closed to Dr. Dickson, (with the request that he would present it 
for examination to you,) a small crystal which seemed to me to 
possess the adamantine lustre, and was hard enough to scratch 
every thing to which I applied it, it cutting limpid quartz easily. 
Should you find it to be a diamond, would you regard the pick- 
ing up of a single one among the gravel from a gold-rocker, as 
affording a sufficient inducement for instituting a search for dia- 
monds at that place ?”’ \- 
Although there could be: no mistake about the hardness and 
lustre possessed by this crystal, 7. e., that they could only belong 
to the diamond, still there was something in its singularly elon- 
gated shape, which at first sight was calculated to remind one of 
an hexagonal prism with trihedral summits, such as occurs in cal- 
cite, or tourmaline: but then the faces were each diagonally divi- 
ded by a slightly raised edge; and besides, they all equally had 
the peculiar sphericity so frequent in the diamond. The erystal 
however, which is bounded by twenty-four isosceles triangles, is 
plainly enough a common secondary of the cube, through the 
bevelment of its edges; and its unusual figure arises from the 
disproportionate extension of the twelve planes situated about its 
vertical axis. See the figure i in the mar, 
Fig-2. Its weight is 4-12 grains, wad its specific grav- 
ity=3:334. It is transparent, possessing only @ 
faintly pale yellowish ance of color ; and it is neal- 
A ly without flaw. 
_:| It is to be hoped that the proprietors of gold 
. | washings throughout the district, will immediately 
| Set on foot a systematic search for this precious 
ning, might be overlooked to almost any extent. 
Selinaforls there can scarcely remain a doubt, but that the dia- - 
ee eee ee wealth of the 
gem, which, in the ordinary operations of gold mir 
(Ee eee Oe, eee 
