Reports and Proceedings, — Society of Arts. 35 



tions of an iiimsual amount of labour on the part of Indians, in 

 former years, to secure the precious material." 



It may perhaps serve to intensify the legendary sacredness with 

 which the Pipe-stone Quai-ry has been so often invested when we 

 add, that the age of the layer itself, and of its accompanying rocks, 

 is still a mystery to geologists.. G- A. Leboue. 



WooDBURN, Zrd December, 1870. 



i2<Ei=oiaa?s -A-ZLsTiD iPiiocEiEiDinsra-s. 



Society of Arts.— Nov. 23rd, 1870. Sir Henry Barkly, K.C.B. 

 in the Chair. Professor Tennant delivered a lecture before this 

 Society on "South African Diamonds." 



The lecturer gave the following history of the discovery of dia- 

 monds at the Cape of Good Hope : In March, 1867, Dr. Atherstone, 

 of Graham's Town, received by post, in an unsealed, unregistered 

 letter, a rough diamond, which had been picked up on a farm in the 

 Hope Town district, and forwarded by Mr. J. O'Eeilly to Mr. 

 Lorenzo Boyes, Clerk of the Peace for the district of Colesberg. who 

 sent it to Dr. Atherstone, in order that he might give his opinion as 

 to the probability of its being of any value. He had not seen a 

 rough diamond before, but, after taking the specific gravity, testing 

 the hardness, and examining it by polarized light, he decided that it 

 was a genuine diamond of considerable value ; and jDcrceiving the 

 great importance of such a discovery to the colony, he at once 

 wrota to the Colonial Secretary, suggesting that it should be sent to 

 the Paris Exhibition, and afterwards sold for the benefit of the 

 finder. This fortunate person was a Dutch farmer, named Schalk 

 van Niekerk, who, seeing the children of a neighbouring boer 

 playing with some bright stones, was struck by the appearance of 

 one, which he offered to buy of the mother. She laughed at the 

 idea of selling the gem, and gave it to him at once. He showed it to 

 Mr. O'Eeilly, who was returning from a distant hunting expedition, 

 and so it finally reached Dr. Atherstone. At the close of the Paris 

 Exhibition the stone was purchased by Sir Philip Wodehouse, then 

 Governor of the colony, for £500. Passing on to compare the South 

 African with other diamond-fields, the lecturer remarked that it had 



a. Face. 



h. Side-view of the " Star of 

 South Africa" Diamond, 

 c. Back. 



hitherto been unusual to receive more than one large diamond — say 

 40 carats — in the course of a single year, either from India, Borneo, 



