Category: Diamonds

THE first decade of the twentieth century has brought to light the greatest diamond and the most audacious swindle in the history of diamonds. In May, 1905, a Frenchman named Henry Lemoine approached Sir Julius Wernher, of the London firm Wernher, Beit & Co., a large diamond house, with a scheme for making diamonds synthetically. […]

THOUGH with the appropriate use of them, there is also much vulgar display of diamonds, and an equally vulgar habit of decrying them as vulgar on that account, writers and poets continue to refer to the gem as one of the chief accompaniments of wealth and station, and as an illustration of the cardinal qualities […]

IN olden times little was known about the diamond beyond the superficial facts that it was hard, brilliant, and crystallized in. a certain definite form. In India, where it was first found and used as a jewel, imagination usually answered the questions of the curious, and if the answers were adopted by those in authority, […]

THE first thing that one should do when he intends to buy diamonds, is to disabuse his mind of the idea that he is about to purchase another form of cur-rent exchange with his greenbacks. Notwithstanding the elaborate advertising they have had as an investment, diamonds are not an investment, in a business sense, for […]

The weight of diamonds today is reckoned by the “carat,” a term which means different quantities of mass in different countries, though it is practically the same in those markets of the world where most of the gems are handled. It is nowhere recognized by a government as a definite legal weight, but is an […]

The third stone of the second row in the Jewish High Priest’s breastplate, according to the biblical translation, was a diamond, and in common with the others had the name of a tribe of Israel engraved upon it. The name given to this stone in the ancient writings, ” Jahalom,” may have represented the diamond. […]

There have been many attempts to make diamonds. The difficult problems involved have excited the desire of scientists to solve them and the great value of the gem has been an incentive to hundreds who experimented in the hope that they might learn how to turn one of the common elements of the earth into […]

IN addition to carbonado or carbon, there are other forms of diamond which are used largely for mechanical purposes. Of these the principal is called ” bort.” This is crystallized diamond not sufficiently transparent or clear to cut as jewels. A large part of the product of the diamond fields is composed of this material. […]

For several reasons the Roberts-Victor mine is one of the most important of the new mines of South Africa. Its initial capital is £160,000, divided in one pound shares. With one exception, the diamonds from this mine have brought the highest price per carat of any. In 1906 the average price 0f the Dutoitspan diamonds […]

FEW people recognize the influence which the diamond has had in the world’s affairs. Generally it is regarded as a bauble simply: a star to shine in the lighter realms of love and pleasure, but outside the plane of rugged forces which are supposed to govern the serious interests of life. Yet a moment’s reflection […]