Jasper County Democrat, Volume 2, Number 17, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 August 1899 — Can Make Diamonds by Dynamite. [ARTICLE]

Can Make Diamonds by Dynamite.

“Diamonds Made by Dynamite” would be a queer sign on a jeweler’s window, but queer things are bound to happen in an age of electric furnaces one the one hand apd liquefied hydrogen on the other. After close study of the South African diamond fields scientists formed the theory that diamonds were made In nature's laboratory from carbon liquefied by enormous heat and pressure, and dissolved in iron, from which they crystallized out in cooling. By calculation It was found that his would require a temperature of about 4,000 degrees centigrade (7,232 degrees Fahrenheit), and a pressure of 15 tons to the square inch. Molssan, of Paris, and other experimenters have produced crystals by imitating this process as closely as possible, but they were too small and Imperfect to have any value as jewels. Some other process must be discovered whereby carbon and iron can be subjected to an enormous heat and pressure before we can hope to produce diamonds on a commercial scale. In this condition Professor Crookes has suggested to the Royal Institution that "in their researches on the gases from fired gunpowder and cordite Sir Frederick Able and Sir Andrew Noble obtained in closed steel cylinders pressure as great as 95 tons to the square Inch, and temperature as high as 4,000 degrees centigrade.” Here, then, If the observations are correct, we have sufficient temperature and enough high pressure to liquefy carbon, and If the temperature could only be allowed to act a sufficient time on the carbon there Is little doubt that the artificial formation of diamonds would soon pass from the microscopic stage to a scale more likely to satisfy the requirements of science, industry and personal decoration.—Chicago Inter Ocean. Mournful spectacles are seldom arranged in tiers.