The Middlebury register and Addison County journal. [volume] (Middlebury, Vt.) 1883-1885, 1884-09-19
A GREAT DIAMOND HOAX.
HOW CALIFORNIA BANKERS WE'RE
DUPED BY RoGUEs.
A visionary scheme which Fntan-
gIcd Many MiIIionnircS-Thc First
Correct story Now Told.

House this afternoon | met friend who
for few years prior to the great crash of
1878 was one of the boldest operators on
the Slope. Raston's failure, however,
drew him down, and since that time he
has dropped out of the mad whirl of Cal
lorna speculation. lie now owns a few
vineyards down near San Diego, and is
living quietly and contentcdly. During
our three hours conversation my friend
accidentally referred to the great dia-
mond hoax of thirteen years ago which
duped number of prominent California
operators. Aware that the inside history
of the swindle had never been made pub
lie, | cleverly got him started, and he
divulgod the following story:
In 1871 two rough-looking prospectors
walked into the Bank of California and
asked for Mr. Ralston, the cashier and
leading spirit of the bank. They had two
little buckskn bags, which they said con-
tanned something, and they did not know
exactly what it was. One of the bags
they said they believed had diamonds in
the rough but the other they said they
did not 'know what kind of a stone
it was; they mout be garnets.' Ralston
laughed at the idea of " diamonds" but
he asked to see them. There was about
half pint of black, dirty-looking crys-
tails, ranging in size from a pea to a
hazel-nut. The other bag had dark,
blood-red stones that were promptly pro
nounced Arizona "garnets by the great
banker, and cast aside as worthless. He
told the prospcctors to leave the bag with
the black crystals, and he would have
them examined by experts. He did so.
Professor lie Conte the geologist of the
University of California, pronounced
them diamonds. So did Professor Jann,
the best mining expert in San Francisco.
Shreve and other leading jewelers. all
agreed they were diamonds. Shreve had
one partially cut, and it revealed beau
tiful white stone. The question then
arose, "Where did they come FROM"
Ralston was greatly excited. He called
in Sharon, and even took ID. o. Mills
into his confidence. The two prospectors
gave their names as William Arnold and
Isaac w. Slack, and said they had been
prospecting in Arizona and Utah and
Wyoming, and they had found the stones
in one of the regions named, but refused
to say Just where. They said. however,
that there were "bushels" of the same
kind left. The diamond fever grew and
finally Ralston, Sharon, Nicholas Lunng,
SlCdl 'Dull lduClSCO dIJlIdtiSl, ~ lllldnl
NJ. Lent, 5. l.. NJ Barlow, of New York !,
George d. Roberts, the present Postal
telegraph man; Michael Reese, the great
Jewish millionaire, and several others
formed IA syndicate and agreed to take
the diamond fields at 81, 900, 600, pro-
vidcd the representations of Arnold and
Slack were verified by experts. Mean
time the other little bag of specimens
Ctl,r rod 70 CT 10
contain genuine rubies. Some were sent
to New York to be cut and were found
to be genuine stones These were said to
come from the same "fields."
When they had the bargain drawn up
in black and white and $2j, 600 paid as
earnest money Arnold and Slack revealed
secretly to Ralston the location of the
find and offered to pilot three of the
banks own experts to the ground. One
morning in April, 1872, four disguised
figures crept down in the dawn to the
Oakland Ferry. They were Arnold,
George d. Roberts, Henry Janin and
George Hearst. Janin was the most ac-
complished geologist and mining en-
gineer in the city, and Roberts and Hearst
were, and are yet, the best practical
miners in California. The party took
the cars and Arnold piloted them to
Green river, Wyoming Territory. There
they left the train, got mules and an
ambulance and struck for the Green
river mountains, forty five miles south of
the railroad. They were on the ground a
week. The diamond field did not
seem to be more than fifty acres in eX-
tent and was at the base of low
range of barren red sandstone hills.
They found diamonds in the
greatest quantities scattered about
in the low beds of dry gravel
They dug down and found them in
groups of six and eight. They were all
greatly excited except Arnold. When
at the end of a week they prepared to
leave they had more than a quart of dia-
monds and rubies of all sizes Well.
when they got back to San Francisco
the town was atlame. A company was
at once organized with $4,000, 600 CAPT
tai. The $1,000, 600 to pay Arnold and
Stack was advanced by RalstoD, and in
part made good by the syndicate. Rob-
erts, Luning, Lent, Ralston and Sharon
each put in 800, 600, and Barlow made
up a pool in New York to take up $3.50,
GOO more. Then the public began to
clamor for the stock, but so confident
were the promoters of the scheme that
they had a new Golconda that they
locked the stock up in the bank of Cali
fornia and refused to let a share 90 out
Arnold and slack took their money and
left the coast. Arnold got $40, 600 in
cash. He went to Elizabethtown, Ky,
bought magnificent farm and settled
down, Slack went to Europe and was
never heard of again.
Clarence King, the United States geolo-
.ist, had made survey of that region,
and remembered the exact spot in which
the diamonds were said to be found lie
knew it was not diamond country. He
suspected fraud. Anyhow his reputation
as a geological surveyor was at stake, and
he went to examine it quietly by himself.
A weeks close study revealed the whole
truth, and in an elaborate report he
showed how the ground had been