Report on the Exhibition of Gems. 67 



together on one occasion, within these walls, as large an 

 amount and variety of authenticated Colonial gem stones as 

 possible, whether cut or in their natural state, I intend to 

 devote the main portion of this report to that feature of the 

 exhibition ; still, 1 trust I shall be able, either to-night or at 

 the next meeting of our society, to do justice to the other 

 half of the precious works in gold and silver which lent so 

 much lustre and interest to the exhibition, both as works of 

 art from the parent country and as displaying the peculiar 

 excellence of our own Colonial workmanship. I will now, 

 for the sake of method, invite your kind attention to a few 

 observations on the gems and precious stones, which I pro- 

 pose to treat in the order in which mineralogists generally 

 place them, commencing, of course, with that justly desig- 

 nated king of minerals the 



DIAMOND. 



So late as this time twelve months there was a certain 

 amount of hesitation among our mineralogists to admit that 

 the diamond had been found in Victoria, beyond the possi- 

 bility of a doubt. Even my learned predecessor in this 

 chair, Professor M'Coy, when noticing, in his annual address, 

 a paper of mine, in which I had called attention to the 

 subject, added, that " none of them had actually occurred to 

 myself" And this was true. But I had the assurance of 

 more than one truthful man of the fact, and I had examined 

 personally the district which yielded them, and compared it 

 with the geological descriptions of the diamond mines of 

 Brazil and the Ural mountains, and found such evidences of 

 identity as would have warranted me in saying that if none 

 had been found a search for them ought to be instituted. 

 The results of this exhibition have now placed this important 

 truth far beyond impeachment, and have afforded the public 

 an opportunity of seeing our own diamonds both in the 

 rough, and cut and polished, in all their beauty. 



The only locality from which I have seen the diamond is 

 Beechworth, though I have been assured that one or more 

 have been found near North East Gippsland. Taking the 

 cautious and learned traveller and mineralogist Mawe as an 

 authority, I may here express surprise that no diamond has 

 been reported from Moonambel, Mountain Creek, or Mount 

 Greenock, where the blue topaz occurs. Speaking of the 

 beautiful blue topaz, he says, " It occurs along with chryso- 

 beryl, in that conglomerate which we have already mentioned 



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