A CHAPTER ON DIAMONDS. 



39 



basis of carbon ; it is united to the woi-kl of imponderables by its 

 incorporated liglit ; and tlie resulting compound belongs, by its 

 hardness, &c., to the mineral kingdom.. As if so precious a 

 compound could only be generated where the solar ray is most 

 energetic, its habitat had also been, until lately, confined to local- 

 ities ranging within 1 8 deg. on either side of the equsitor, in Asia 

 and South America. 



It is but fair to observe, in opposition to these somewhat imagi- 

 native views, that some philosphers are content to look upon the 

 diamond as the humble product of vegetable secretion, hke amber. 

 As silica is abundantly secreted by some grasses, and carbonate of 

 lime by some of the chara tribe, as semi-opal has been met with 

 in the joints of the bamboo, and wood-stone in logs of teak-wood, 

 so it has been suggested that the diamond may be a secretion from 

 some patriarch and antidehivian boabab or banian tree. The dia- 

 mond, it is to be observed, is not found in rocks, but only in 

 detritus, as gravel or mud conglomerates in beds of rivers and 

 deep ravines on the slopes of mountains, and in cavities and water- 

 courses on the summits of the loftiest mountains.''* Linschoter 

 asserts, that in the East Indies, when they have cleared the dia- 

 mond-mines of all they can find, a new crop is produced in a few 

 years. This, we need not remark, is more than problematical ; 

 yet certain it is that, at the present day, no one knows where the 



* The celebrated traveller, Marco Polo, relates of the diamond mines in 

 the kingdom of iMarsiii, that the natives ascend the mountains in the summer 

 time, though with great difFicalLy, because of the vehemence of the heat, 

 and find abundance of those precious stones among the gravel. In this they 

 are likewise much exposed to danger, from the vast number of serpents of 

 enormous size, v/hich shelter themselves in the holes and caverns of these 

 rocks where, nevertheless, they find diamonds in the greatest abundance. — 

 Among other methods of obtaining them they make use of this: there are 

 abundance of white eagles that rest in the upper part of those rocks, for the 

 sake of feeding on the serpents; and in the deep valleys and precipices, where 

 men are afruid to venture themselves, they throw pieces of raw meat, which 

 the eagles, perceiving, immediately stoop and seize it, with all the little 

 stones and gravel that adhere to these moist pieces of raw meat. Such as 

 search for diamonds watch the eagle's nests, and when they leave them, 

 pick up such little stones acid search likewise for diamonds among the eagles' 

 dung." The well-known Julius Cessar Scaliger was extremelj^ offended 

 with this relation ; [)ut Pinkerton justly remarked upon it, that the Venetian 

 was imposed upon by the natives, who were anxious to preserve the trade in 

 their own hands, and to deter strangers by such fables (the oriental origin of 

 which IS manifest enough) from attem.pting the search themselves. 



