Concerning Diamonds

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Nov 25, 1886

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 12, No. 45.

Concerning Diamonds.

WHERE the diamond comes from nobody knows. You can no more predict the existence of diamonds than you can the existence of genius, though, to be sure, all diamond fields to a certain extent resemble each other; and diamonds, borrowing as they do their light from the sun, are found only in warm climates. Nor can you tell where the diamond goes to on combustion. Burn it, and it leaves no ash; the flame is exterior, like that of cork, and when it has blazed itself out there remains not even so much as would dust the antenna of a butterfly.

The ancients were as sure no diamonds could be burnt as they were that none could be broken. It was not till 1609 that De Boot suspected its inflammability, nor till 1673 it was actually burnt.—Sel.