Diamond Tidbits

Why A Diamond Engagement Ring?
Here is one theory: Ancients used to believe gem stones were solidified drops of divine essence, embedded in rocks when the world was created. Diamonds were sacred to the Mother of the gods because they “ruled” all other stones by their superior hardness. Diamonds were sacred to the Supreme Goddess and were taken over by the cult of the Virgin. Because of this association with virginity, they came to be considered appropriate betrothal gifts.


Just How Many Diamonds are there on American Soil?
As it turns out...more than some of us might think!

1853...California. The first diamond is discovered in the Cherokee district of Butte County. California deposits are likened to the diamantiferous gravel of Brazil. More diamonds are found, in five more counties: Amador, Butte, El Dorado, Nevada, and Trinity. It ain't only gold what's in them thar hills.

1869...Idaho. Some small diamonds have been found in the placer diggings of Idaho. They're found under the same conditions as those found in California ...picked up by gold miners. A stir is created in the local papers. References are made as the abundant yield of Idaho diamonds. Out of curiosity, how many of you out there thought Idaho was only potato country?

1883...Montana. An octahedral diamond is found at a placer claim at Nelson Hill, near Deer Lodge County, Montana. It's brought to New York, submitted to a diamond expert, and pronounced real.

1884...Wisconsin. A Milwaukee jeweler buys a stone from a lady for $1.00. He tells her it's a topaz. It's said it was found while digging a well on her husband's property. Turns out it's a diamond, the first ever found in Wisconsin, and is therefore valued at quite a high price. Did this jeweler take the lady for a ride? I don't know. Once word got out, she sold her property at an inflated rate, so she made out okay.

1888...Cincinnati. A laborer is attending to a boulder-crushing machine and he finds a diamond weighing over 80 carats. A theory floats around that the stone might be one lost by a Mrs. Clark in 1806. Who know? Who cares? 80 carats! It's the lottery of 1888. Only thing is...they don't say whether it was a rough or cut stone. I think we're talking cut. But don't go rushing off to Ohio yet with your mining tools. Wait till I get some more info. I'll be sending you all a card...from Ohio, of course. :)

1888 again...Kentucky. There's an account of a diamond coming out of Russell County. It weighs a little over 0.43 carats. It's an octahedron. It's lustrous, nearly white, with a tinge of yellow. It was found in a gravelly field on top of a hill. A theory is advanced. Diamonds may have been formed in the peridotite of Kentucky. Ahh...for the sweet smell of blue grass country.

Arizona...don't know the year. A man called J.D. Yerrington of New York city owns a brown diamond. It weighs 1 carat. When cut, it will yield a 1/2 carat gem. It was found near Philadelphos, Arizona.

The time...many years ago. Sorry, that's the closest I can get. Koko Creek, in Eastern Tennessee...at the headquarters of the Tellico River. We're on the bench lands of the Smokey or Unaka Mountains. Three diamond crystals are found. This points to an extension of the diamond-belt of North Carolina.

There's more. It seems almost endless. There are diamonds found in Georgia--in Bangor, Maine--in North Carolina. The largest diamond ever found in America is supposed to be the Dewey Diamond, found in Manchester, Virginia, in 1855...found by a laborer while paving a street near Richmond. It's original weight was 23 3/4 carats. After cutting...11 11/16 carats. It's not very valuable. It's off color...it's imperfect. But so what? Corn and hay and beef and potatoes, and alfalfa and tobacco and chickens ain't our only resources folks. No sirree! There's diamonds out there...just for the pickin'.
And there you have it.


Diamonds...How and when they were created.
There is more than one theory as to how and when diamonds were created. We'll use one.

Let's go back back...to the beginnings of time...when the earth was young. We're talking about 70 million to 150 million years ago. It was the beginning of the continental drift...that time in history when the earth began to break up, and Africa and South America separated, and the Atlantic Ocean was formed. It was then, during the creation of the Atlantic Ocean, that violent volcanic activity created enough heat and pressure to create diamonds. How much heat and pressure? Well, we're talking about 7000kg/cm2 and 3,630 degrees Fahrenheit. (2000 degrees Centigrade) The only place on this planet of ours where that kind of heat and pressure can be achieved is roughly 120 miles deep into the earth. Sometimes, very rarely, a heavy meteorite hits the planet with enough heat and pressure to create diamonds. But this is a very rare occurrence. As the earth changed and shifted, diamonds slowly began to find their way to the surface...a great deal of the time via the eruptions of volcanoes. The name of the rock formed by these volcanoes is called Kimberlite...and much of it is found in South Africa...today's heart of the diamond producing mines of the world.

We now shoot forward through the mists of time. No one knows exactly when man discovered diamonds. What we do know, however, is that from the beginnings of ancient times, when man first discovered diamonds, to the middle of the eighteenth century, India was the world's only supplier. There was a king in India around the years 320 to 298 B.C. His name was Chandragupa. It was during his reign that documentation was revealed that proved that not only were diamonds known in the fourth century B.C., but they were also used as commodities for trade. It was sometime in the eighteenth century, Brazil entered the arena and became a major force in the production of diamonds.

Diamonds are mentioned in the times of Alexander the Great. They appear in the stories of the Thousand and One Nights with Sinbad the Sailor, and later, in the stories written about Marco Polo.
Today, the Diamond Syndicates of South Africa control world diamond production.


Diamonds...Pressure...and Peanut Butter
Yeah yeah...an unlikely title...what's he going to come up with this time? Yawn yawn.

Okay. Here's the story...here's the problem...and here's the solution. This all has to do, once again--I've skirted this topic before--with the making of man made diamonds. And here's the story. In theory, it should be simple. Diamonds are made from carbon...and so is almost everything else on this earth, including plastics, wood, and even us. Take out the water, squish a human being with enough heat and pressure, and, theoretically at least, you should get a diamond. So, next time any of you start to think your fellow human may be a bit worthless...think again.

Now...here's the problem. Pressure! At the turn of the century, there wasn't a lab around that could achieve a continuous pressure of over three thousand atmospheres. If you want to know what this means... listen. Go down to the deepest depths of our deepest oceans, and you'll only reach pressures totally a tad over one thousand atmospheres. And three thousand atmospheres doesn't begin to cut it for creating a diamond. It turns out that fifty thousand atmospheres or more is what you need to do the trick. Impressed?

In 1905 a man called Percy Bridgeman was able to create a machine that could generate seven thousand atmospheres (50 tons of pressure per square inch). By 1910 he had things going up to twenty thousand atmospheres. He could now get water to become ice at room temperature. Okay...it wasn't a diamond yet...but still...ice without a freezer. Move over G.E.

1930 comes around and Percy's got his equipment cooking in the range of four hundred thousand atmospheres (that's nearly 3000 tons per inch). More than enough pressure...but no dice...um...make that diamonds.

And now...the solution. It will only work if you can sustain a temperature level of 1000 degrees centigrade while keeping up the pressure of over fifty thousand atmospheres. Percy never made it, though he did get a Nobel Prize in physics for his achievements. So...we're off to Sweden. Let me introduce you all to a Mr. Baltzar von Platen. He's considered a genius and an eccentic...all at the same time. But you can't touch him for brilliance in a laboratory. He designs a machine that produces over sixty thousand atmospheres...and sets the pace for those that follow him...re: a scientist by the name of Erik Lundblad. On February 16, 1953, Erik makes history. He subjects graphite to a pressure of 83,000 atmospheres for a full hour...and creates the first synthetic diamond. But it's not announced...and so the race continues...and we end up back in America...with a company called General Electric. The date is now December 8, 1954. Wednesday evening. Herb Strong, a research scientist for G.E., loads his machine with black carbon powder, raises the pressure to fifty thousand atmospheres and the temperature to 1250 degrees centigrade...lets the stuff cook for 16 hours...and makes two small diamonds. December 16, 1954, another scientist does it again. His name is Tracy Hall.

Since then man made diamonds have become almost commonplace accomplishments. Today, production exceeds over one hundred tons per year. But it's all industrial stuff folks...not to worry.
Oh yeah...one more thing. The Peanut Butter. Where does that come in? I'll tell you. As an experiment, a scientist named Robert Wentorf Jr. took a spoonful of the stuff and put it into the machine and presto... the chef's delight...diamond crystals. And why not? Peanut Butter is carbon too you know. As is plastic, and tar, and wood, and us.


Cost of Operating a Diamond Mine
A question that surely weighs heavily and inexorably on the minds of the readers of Tidbits--and any other breathing human being for that matter--is unquestionably this: Is there a cost versus location situation when it comes to operating a diamond mine? In other words...is it more or less expensive to operate a diamond mine in the valley than on the mountain top? The answer to this tantalizing rebus is that it makes no difference at all. The reason is in the final product. Unlike gold or iron or copper or lead...we don't need enormous carting facilities like railroads and pipe lines to ship out the day's yield. One hundred million dollars worth of product can weigh only a couple of pounds at most...and can be hauled away in a light aircraft.

South Africa. Land of the lion, the leopard, the cheetah, and the diamond. Our gem is in good company. Ten thousand feet up, over the Lesothan mountains, our plane heads directly into a mountain wall. Mists hang heavily in the air. Suddenly, micro-seconds before what is surely destined to be a crash, a landing strip appears and we touch ground with little bump. Brigadoon? Well...close, but no cigar. We're in Letseng-La-Terai--the highest diamond mine in the world. We're on the roof of Africa. Welcome my friends. Let's stroll about, shall we?

Against the side of the mountain is a square tower--a citadel of iron reaching through the fog. It's the separation plant. Large stones are the mainstay of this operation...large being defined as any rough diamond weighing over 14.8 carats. This plant produces about 200 such stones a year, and it is only one of two where large stones are regularly gleaned, the other plant being in Sierra Leone. Hit a forty carat rough gem, you got a half a million dollars coming into the coffers.

It's the fifteenth of the month. A bell begins to clang with grating persistence. A large diamond has just been found...the first one this month, and it is for it the bell tolls. There's excitement in the air. The mine needed a find like this in order to remain solvent. There was an ever increasing belief that the mine was tapped out with larger goods. Everyone hurries to the sorting house. Relief is in the air. For now, the mine will not have to be closed...though it needs two or three such finds a month in order to survive.

It weighs fifty eight carats. It's is top grade color quality. How much will it bring in? As a rough...about 340 thousand dollars. Maybe a little more. This money will support the mine for two weeks...then that's it. Another one better be found soon. This enterprise employs 800 workers at an average gross collective salary of 20 grand a week for labor alone. If you take in the salaries of the engineers and other support crew... supervisors etc., cost of fuel and machinery...our little mine residing as close to heaven as a mine can get...cost about 150,000 dollars a week to operate. One diamond a month, clearly, doth not do it. The logistics are overwhelming. This mine needs to sort through three to four tons of kimberlite-- the material in which diamonds are found--in order to glean one single carat of diamonds.