The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1877-11-01
DIAMONDS.
The Most Precious of Precious Stones
The Fields Of Brazil, South Africa,
Russia and India.

The Most Precious of Precious Stones
The Fields of Brazil, South Africa,
Russia and India.
London Spectator.
Until within little more than ten years
ago, an "Ethiop" on his native soil desi-
rous of wearing a fair jewel in his ear
would have had to import the bauble
and at much later date, the colonists of
Queensland and New South Wales be-
lieved that Nature, in the storing of her
treasure-houses out of their way, had
drawn the line at gold. In all the riches
of the earth had English territory share,
except in those much=pfized things which
have inspired fancies and fables from the
beginning of all records of fancy and of
fable. The diamond had hitherto yielded
up its peerless preciousness in Indian
mines and in Brazilian gravel.beds-
where in early times the men who, in
washing gold, found the sparkling stones,
threw them away, or used them as card
markers-in the Ural mountains (where
the earth was also bountiful of emerald, J
and in Borneo. Of these treasure boards
India's were
THE MOST ANCIENT AND RICH,
and the most industriously rifed. When,
in 1727, Bernardino Fonseca Lobo, who
had seen rough diamonds in India, took
number of the pretty card-markers from
Minas-G -Geraes to Portugal for sale, the
European merchants, frightened lest the
discovery should cause a fall in the price
of the gems in their possession, declared
that brazilian diamonds" were only the
refuse of the Indian stones, forwarded to
Goa, and thence to Brazil. No inani.
mate article of commerce in the world
has inspired more cruelty and tyranny,
or occasioned more misery, than the dia-
mond; and, if among the animate the
horse rivals it as suggester of subtle
swindling, it barely does 80. The very
fairies cannot help cheating in precious
stones; how, then, should mere mortal
merchants? So the dealers, having the
ear of the diamond-b buying world, pooh
hoohed and discredited Brazil; where
upon the Portuguese cut their human
fellow diamonds deeply by sending the
Brazilian stones to Goa. and thence to
Bengal, where they were offered for sale
as Indian gems, and fetched Indian pri-
ces. This was a very neat transaction,
pending the establishment of the "Dia-
mentina" as remunerative fact demon
strated by slave labor.
SOME REMARKABLE STORIES
are connected with the discovery Of dia-
monds in Brazil, so much regretted by
the Marquis de Pombal, who vainly en-
deavored to arrest the evil by forbidding
search in the Province of Bahia Brazil
ian diamonds were known at first as ''Ba-
hias'') on the plea that agriculture would
suffer from the diversion of industry.
We find these stories in Mr.. Streeter's
valuable work on "Precious Stones" in
which every branch sof hisEfascinatinss
subject is made interesting. The discov-
cry of diamonds in Bahia was in this
wise: "a cunning slave from Minas-
Geraes, keeping his masters focks in
Bahia, observed q similarity between the
soil of his native place and that of Bahia.
He sought therefore in the sand, and soon
found 700 ecarats Of diamonds. 2 Fl eeihg
from his master, lie carried these with
him, and offered them for sale in dis
tant city. Such wealth in the hands of
slave caused him to be arrested, but he
would not betray himself. The master,
to whom he was given up, tried to get at
his secret by cunning, but without avail,
until he thought of restoring him to his
former occupation, in Bahia, and watch
ing him." A year afterwards $4,000
people were digging diamonds there
leighty miles long by forty broad, and
at the rate of ], $50 carats day.
DREADFUL MISERY, tia
ensued on the discovery of the "Dia-
mond Rivers" The government wanted
to secure a monopoly of the new-found
wealth to the Crown, and so the dwellers
on the rivers banks were driven from
their homes to distant wilds and despoiled
of all they possessed. Mature seemed
to take part against them; aedreadful
drouth, succeeded by violent earth
quake, increased their distress. Many of
them perished, but those who lived to
return, on May Is, 1906, were beneyo-
lently reinstated in their rightful posses
sions. Strange eto, say. on, their return,
the earth seemed strewn With diamonds.
After shower, the children used to find
gold in the Streets. and in the brooks
which traversed them. Often the little
ones would bring in three or four carats
of diamonds. A negro found diamond
at the root of vegetable in his garden,
and poultry, in picking up their food,
took up diamonds constantly" Esop
thus improved upon, in the fullness of
time we find Sindbad parodied. In 1868
the child of a Dutch farmer named ia
cobs, settled at the Cape, amused himself
by collecting pretty pebbles on the banks
of the neighboring river, and picked up
a specimen which attracted his mothers
attention, SO that she showed it to one
Setback van Niekirk, who was curious in
such matters. He was puzzled about its
nature, and offered to buy it, but Mrs.
Jacobs laughed at this offer and gave
him the pebble, which afterwards passed
carelessly through two intervening pairs
of hands before it reached-in gummed
envelope and unregistered-Dr. Ather.
stone, of Graham's Town, an excellent
minefalogist. This gentleman, having
examined its physical character and tes-
ted its degree of hardness and density,
and its behavior when subjected to opti.
cal tests by means of polarized lights,
PRONOUNCED 1T TO BE A DIAMOND.
This is the stone which was examined by
savans of all nations during the Paris
Exhibition in 1867, and purchased at the
close Of it by Sir Philip Wodehouse fol
$500. In 1870 Mr.. Streeter's Diamond
Expedition party were exploring the
Transvaal far and wide, and ascertaining
facts which complete our knowledge Of
the new wonder Of the world. Amid dry
geological details, charming touches Of
anecdote and adventure crop up, like the
gems themselves, from the gravel and
the quartz; and great solitary jewels
like the sfStuart" and the aDudley,' D
emerge and take their places in history