The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1880-04-03
Mr.. Hannay's Diamonds.

The announcement that Mr.. Ballan-
tine Hannay, of Glasgow, would de-
scribe his process of producing dia-
monds artificially attracted an unusu-
ally large gathering to the weekly
meeting of the Royal Society last night.
Mr.. Hannay, was not, however, present,
and the papers were read by one of the
secretaries. The second paper, which
occupied only few minutes in reading,
was Preliminary Note on the Arti-
fetal Formation of Diamonds" by Mr..
Hannay. The author mentioned that
he had conceived that as gases under
great pressure and at high temperature
dissolved solids, which afterwardd orys-
talized out on the heat and pressure be-
ing removed, possibly water-gas-or
gas passing from the liquid into the
gaseous condition-might act thus on
carbon, which might subsequently crys-
talize in the form of diamonds. In
this expectation he was disappointed.
All forms of carbon, charcoal, lamp
black, graphite, ETC., refused to dis
solve under the condition presented to
them. After many failures he was
recommended by Prof. Stokes to take
advantage of the observations of Messrs.
Lieving and Dewar on the affinity of
hydrogen for certain metals, and by
this agency to associate the hydrogen
from the carbons. He claimed to have
eventually succeeded by submitting ga
hydro-carbon" in the presence of g a
heterogeneous compound" to immense
pressure and heat, with the result that
On b, 10
which the experiments were performed
minute crystals of diamonds, or
in other words crystalized carbon,
were found to have been deposited
as the residuum. The paper was
criticised by several fellows. No
doubt was EXPRESSED to tho rnrfnot
good faith Of Mr. iaunsy. AT the
same time the attitude of .h8 meeting
was one of scientific Aep5icism-t2king
the term in parfao''g lnO1ensiye
meaning-un flrt. l..-.Inlatiou WAS
afforded it. This ar. llama promised
to supply at an early date and 10 per.
form the experiments IL need be before
the society or a committee appointed
by it. Meantime, the great trouble he
had was to find vessels in which to
make the experiment, strong enough to
bear the prodigious pressure they were
subjected to. 1t also transpired that
Mr.. Hannay held out no hopes of his
experiments ever being commercially
valuable; at present the cost of making
about five shillings' worth of the mean
est stones exhibited being something
like Is. 1t is, therefore, only rich
people who can afford the pastime of
Misunderstanding. Professor Story
Maskelyne expressed his firm belief in
the good faith of his correspondent.
The stones satisfied every test applica-
BILE to the native diamond and, these
tests having been repeated by Professor
Roscoe, of Manchester, that gentleman
expressed an equally confident opinion
to their being genuine diamonds. The
main doubt as to their being genuine
which still fingered about Professor
Maskelyne's mind was the fact that the
stones sent him were exceedingly minute
none over the one hundred and twen-
ty-eighth of a carat in weight, and
therefore all but microscopical. He
could not see single entire crystal.
All the fragments seemed as if they
were broken bits of larger diamonds,
and one of the largest fragments more
especially bore this character. The
fact of their being broken Mr.. Hannay
attributed to the mechanical violence
which they underwent on the heavy
iron tubes in which they were crystal
lied being broken to get them out.
Finally, Professor Maskelyne, though
at present considering the discovery at
best merely of scientific interest. was
not altogether certain that, now that
the principle has been struck on, larger
stones might not eventually be pro-
duced. The stones exhibited filed a
glass tube not much bigger than
quill, and were so small that, as Pro-
lessor Maskelyne remarked, it would
take about ethousand of them to make
up the bulk of the smallest marketable
diamond. London Standard. i.,-.