juLY 1, 1900.] THE TROPICAL AaPJCULTURIST. 
"THE MANUFACTURE OP PLUMBAGO 
OK GRAPHITE": 
IS IT TO BE ACCOMPLISHED "AS 
EASY AS SOAP" AT NIAGARA? 
ALSO THE MAKING OF REAL 
DIAMONDS EVENTUALLY? 
We all know that the diamond and carbon 
are, in substance, identical. Indeed, this is 
practically true of the following substances 
which may all be put in the same category, 
and which owe their distinctiveness 
to different degrees of heat and pressure, 
namely :— Petroleum, Peat, (Joal, Plum- 
bago, Amber, Diamond. A due amount of 
heat and pressure would have turned our 
plumbago intc diamonds and made the 
Western portion of this island as rich a 
mining district as that of Kimberley. But 
today we have to deal with information 
which goes to show that there is a possibility 
of both plumbago and diamonds beinpf 
manufactured on a scale that may seri- 
ously interfere with mining industries. Of 
course, the artificial, chemical manufacture 
ot the diamond has been a very old threat- 
ened discovery; but we have not before 
heard of graphite being coupled with it, nor 
of operations on the large scale that is now 
revealed. We refer to a paper on "Hottest 
Heat and Electric Furnaces " by Sturgis B. 
Rand in the Windsor Magazine for May. 
We must say, in the first place, that if 
there was any immediate risk of graphite 
being economically and plentifully manu- 
factured, an ever-watchful trade both in 
America and England would have had 
an inkling of what was approaching, long 
before the subject got into a 
monthly magazine, and we should have 
seen the result in altered prices. Still, 
although there is no immediate danger of 
the Ceylon Plumbago Industry being closed 
or even adversely affected by a manufac- 
tured article, which at first, at least, is 
likely to be both more costly and inferior 
in quality ; yet We do not think the pro- 
spective manufacture is to be altogether 
ignored. It is an indisputable fact that the 
hottest furnaces in the world are now 
being operated by the Niagara Falls, and 
this is what Mr. Rand has to say of the 
result :— 
Here clay is melted in vast quantities to form 
aluminium, a metal as precious a few years aa:o as 
sold. Here lime and carbon, the most infusible 
of ail the elements, are joined by intense heat in 
the curious new compound, calcium carbide, a 
bit of which dropped in water decomposes almost 
explosirely, producing the new illuminating- gas, 
acetylene. Here also pure phosphorus and the 
phosphates are made in large quantities ; and here 
is made carborundum— gem-crystals as hard as the 
diamond and as beautiful as the ruby. Just now, 
too an extensive plant is building for the manu- 
facture of graphite, such as is used in making 
lead-pencils, lubricants, electrical appliances, stove- 
blacking, and so on. Graphite has beeiP mined 
from the earth for thousands of years ; it is pure 
carbon, first cousin to the diamond. Ten years 
aco the possil)ility of its manufacture would have 
been scouted as ridiculous ; and 'yet in these 
wonderful furnaces, which repeat so nearly the 
processes of Creation, graphite is as easily made as 
soap. The marvel-workers at Niagara Falls have 
7 
not'yet been able to makediamonds— in quantities. 
The distinguished French chemist Moissau has 
produced them in liis laboratory furnaces — small 
ones, it is true, but diamonds ; and one day they 
may be shipped in peck boxes from the great 
furnaces at Niagara Falls. This is no mere dream ; 
the commercial manufacture of diamonds has 
already had the serious consideration of level- 
he ded, far-seeinf; busiuess men, and it may be 
accounted a distinct probability. 
As regards graphite, • we repeat that, if it 
" were as easily made as soap," it is in- 
credible that Ceylon plumbago should have 
recently been in unprecedented demand 
and at unprecedentedly high prices. Never- 
theless, who is to dispute the possibilities 
erf furnaces heated by electricity generated 
by the power of Niagara ? We are told of 
one furnace so built that an amount of 
heat energy, equivalent to 700 horse-power, 
is produced in an arc cavity not larger 
than an ordinary water tumbler ! As to 
the crystals or gems made, so great an 
authority as Geikie, the Scotch Geologist, 
was deceived : on being told they were 
manufactured, he exclaimed testily : — 
"These Americans! What won't they claim 
next ? Why, man, those crystals have been 
in the earth a million years ! " It seems to 
have been through the manufacture of the 
gems that artificial graphite was accidentally 
noticed. Thus we read : — 
At the end of thirty-six ho\irs the current is 
cut off and the furnace is allowed to cool, the 
workmen pulling down the brick as rapidly as 
they dare. At the centre of the furnace, surround- 
ing the core, there remains a solid mass of car- 
borundum as large in diameter as a hogshead. 
Portions of this mass are sometimes found to be 
composed of pure, beautifully crystalline graphite 
Tliis in itself is a surprising and significant pro- 
duct, and it has opened the way directly to gra- 
phite-making on a large scale. An important and 
interesting feature of the new graphite industry 
is the utilisation it has effected of a product from 
the coke regions of Pennsylvania which was for- 
merly absolute waste. 
It is a pity that the opinion of a crucible- 
maker on the quality of the so-ca'led 
graphite is not given. But Mr. Achesou, 
the investigator, confesses that there is much 
to learn yet of Nature's secret of great 
pressure in regard to "Diamonds" and th e 
same may be true of " Graphite." Never- 
theless, tire potentialities of the " Electric 
Furnace " are, quite probably, beyond all 
present conjecture and we shall have more 
to say on the subject later on. 
Vanilla. — Any one interested in Vanilla 
Culture should read the jiccount of a success- 
ful experiment in Bengal recorded on 
page .52. 
Cacao Pod.— We have seldom seen a finer 
cacao pod of the yellow or Forestero variety 
than has been went its by Mr. Drieberg from 
the Agricultural School. It is 9^ inches long 
by li inches in girth and weighs 2^ lb., 
thereby beating the champion pod sent us 
some years ago by Mr. Drummoud and re- 
corded in our Directory's Planting Review, 
This is .another evidence of how suited cacao 
growing must be for the majority of village 
gardens in tke Western Province. 
