6o 



ing a panic in the colony. Wool, the staple product of the 

 colony, was at a hopelessly low price ; a murrain was thinning 

 the sheep ; never had merchants known such a time of anxiety ; 

 and this great excitement overtook the colony, and search was 

 made for diamonds in all directions. In 1869 a Hottentot 

 shepherd discoverd the far-famed " Star of South Africa." He 

 first offered it in a store for X 2 °°> but the assistant, in his 

 master's absence, refused the offer ; eventually he sold it for 

 ^"400 to the trader who saw the Boer's children playing with 

 diamonds. The fortunate purchaser disposed of it next day for 

 £\ 2,000. In December, 1 870, it was whispered that the children 

 of Duboit, a Boer, were in the habit of picking up diamonds on 

 their father's farm, which was situated twenty miles from any 

 river. The farm was "rushed," and thousands of diamonds 

 were soon unearthed from these " dry diggings " or beds, in 

 which many believe the diamond was created. A tremendous 

 rush to the diamond fields occurred, adventurers crowded thither 

 from all parts of the world, and with such extraordinary rapidity 

 that in 1872 there were 50,000 souls engaged in digging. An 

 eye-witness says that about this time New Rush alone was 

 yielding from ^~i 2,000 to ^15,000 a day. One of the most 

 striking peculiarities of some of the African gems is their liability 

 to crack or explode spontaneously. Some Indian diamonds also 

 have been known to explode. 



Diamonds have been found in other places besides those I 

 have mentioned. It has been stated that a diamond was once 

 found in a brook in Ireland, but the statement requires con- 

 firmation. 



The lustre of the diamond, or the manner in which light is 

 reflected from its surface, is very characteristic, and is one of 

 the reasons of its popularity as a gem. The diamond possesses 

 another optical property in a high degree, a property in which 

 it is prominent among precious stones — the power of changing 

 the course of a ray of light. The extreme hardness of the dia- 

 mond affords a ready means of distinguishing between it and 

 other stones. But, although very hard, the diamond may be 

 broken into fragments in a steel crushing mortar, and the frac- 





