Some Notes on Ancient Ideas concerning the Diamond. 311 
the antipathy between the loadstone {adamant in this case) and the diamond : 
" For as it is impossible for the best Adamant to drawe yron vnto it if the 
Diamond be neere it . . ." That there is no such antipathy is only a 
proof of the rarity of the diamond in Tudor times, and of the abiding 
influence of Pliny. 
5. Diamonds and Gold (p. 35). 
" Qazwini speaks of an amicable relationship between gold and the 
diamond, for if the diamond comes near gold, it clings to the latter ; also 
it is said that the diamond is found only in gold mines." 
Pliny mentioned a casual relationship, but in such a way as to lead 
to the inference that the similar crystallisation was implied, seeing that gold 
is indeed occasionally found in small octahedral crystals. As usual his 
followers copied him uncritically ; and hence we have the Chinese com- 
pound Jcin-kang, which, the author argues, is traceable to classical antiquity, 
and really means " the hard stone originating in gold." 
Diamond and gold are not found in association in the river diggings of 
Grriqualand West, although some diamonds are obtained from the Rand 
banket.* The latter are nearly all green, varying from light bottle green 
to dark olive. The colour has been attributed to the action of radium, but 
some typical specimens tested by me showed no signs of radioactivity. In 
the clearer specimens of these the colour is seen to be derived from included 
streaks of green and yellowish-brown foreign matter much too dense to be 
due to finely divided gold. Mawe reported some very fine superficially 
green diamonds from Brazil. Occasional superficially green diamonds are 
found in the Kimberley area, and now and then one meets with olive green 
laminated stones in Koffyfontein ; also diamonds from the Eland mine have 
a faint greenish cast, none of these being now associated with gold, if they 
ever were. The genetic relationship between diamond and gold is clearly 
not so intimate as that between, say, diamond and magnesium, to some 
combination of which the coloration of diamond may hypothetically be 
ascribed. 
That Pliny, when he spoke of adamas as a name given to a crystal of 
gold, was only referring to outside appearances, seems to be proved by the 
six sorts of adamas which he cites as coming from various localities ; for 
evidently he was quite aware that not all these had the same physical 
characters. He was no more in error than the jewellers who sell Scotch 
Topaz, Cape Ruby, Water Sapphire, Cornish diamonds, etc., nor than the 
mineralogists, who call a diamond made a " spinel twin." And he has not 
perhaps been always happy in his translators. Bos toe k and Riley render 
his sexangulo" by " hexangular and hexahedral," f Boutan by " six cotes." 
* See E. B. Young, ' The Banket/ 1917, p. 35. 
t " No body, of course, can simultaneously be hexangular and hexahedral, the 
hexahedron being a cube with six sides and four points" ! (Laufer, p, 44). 
