Savannah morning news. [volume] (Savannah) 1868-1887, 1884-08-18
A CLEAR STEAL OF A MILLION
How Diamonds Were Sown with Shot
guns in the Hills of Arlzona-An Old
Story RetOld.

| HOW Diamonds Were SOWn With Shot
guns in the Hills of Arlzona-An Old
| Story RetOld.
In 1871 two rOugh-looking prospecters
walked into the Bank of California. says
the Chicago Herald, and asked for Mr..
Ralston, the cashier and leading spirit OF
the bank. They had two little buckskin
! bags, which they said contained some
thing 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 d. 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 crystals, ranging in
size from a pea to a haZelnut. The other
bag had dark bloOd-red stones that were
promptly pronounced Arizona 1'garnetsv
by the great banker, and cast aside as
worthless. He told the prospectors to
leave the bag with the black crystals. and
he would have them examined by experts
He did so. Professor LIE Conte, the geOlo-
gist of the University of California, pro-
n0unced them diamonds. So did Profess
sor Janin, the best mining expert in San
Francisco. Shreve and other leading
ul1LlOHUS.
chreYe had one partially cut. and it re-
vealed a beautiful white stone. The
question then arose: 'NWhere did they
come from?" Ralston was greatly eX-
cited. He called in Sharon and even took
D. o. Minis 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 these
N nVln Of hn ,,.D1 hVrf
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
Luning, great San Francisco capitalist;
William NJ. Lent, S. L. NJ. Barlow, of New
York; George d. Roberts, the present
postal telegraph man; Michael Reese, the
great Jewish millionaire, and several
others formed a syndicate and agreed to
take the diamond fields" at $4,000 600,
provided the representations of Arnold
and Slack were verified by experts. Mean
time the other little bag of specimens was
submitted to tests and found to contain
genuine rubies. Some were sent to New
York to be cut, and were found TO be gen.
uIne stones. These were said to come
from the same ''fields.V
"When they had the bargain drawn I'D
in black and white and $4,000 paid as
earnest money, Arnold and Slack reveal
ed secretly to RalstOn the location of the
ind, 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 engineer
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, wy.
L. There they left the train, got mules |
and ambulance and struck for the Green |
River Mountains, fOrty-fYe 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 extent, and |
was at the base of a low range of barren |
red sandstone hills. They found dia- |
monds 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 ex- |
cited except Arnold. When at the end of |
week they prepared to leave they had |
more than quart of diamonds and rubies |
OF all sizes. Well, when they got back to |
san Francisco the town was aflame. |
company was at once organized with S3,- |
100000 capital. The million dollars to pay |
Arnold and Slack was advanced by Raj |
ston, and in part made good by the svndi-
cate. Roberts, Lunning, Lent, Ralston |
and Sharon each put in 100000, and Bar
low made up a pool in New York to take |
S25O,00O more. Then the public began to |
clamOr for the stock, but so confident |
were the promoters of the scheme that |
they had new GOlconda that they locked |
the stock up in the Bank of California and |
refused to let share go out. Arnold and |
Slack took their money and left the coast.
Arnold got $4,000 in cash. He went to
EIlZaDethtoWn, KY, bought a magnificent |
farm and settled down. Slack went to
Europe and was never heard of again.
clarence King, the United States geOI-
ogIst, had made a survey of that region |
and remembered the exact spot in which |
the diamonds were said to be found. He
knew it was not a diamond country. He
suspected fraud. Anyhow his reputa-
ton as q geological surveyor was at |
stake, and he went to examine it quietly
by himself. A weeks close study reveal
ed the whole truth, and in an elaborate
report he showed how the ground had |
been salted, and even the mechanical ap-
pliances used. He found a few of the dia-
monds and unhesItatingly declared them
of the same character as the stones from !
South Africa. An investigation followed,
and in few months the whole truth
came out. Harpending had put up the
JOB and had supplied Arnold and Slack
with the money to carry 1t out. The lat
ter bought in London $4,000 worth of
rough diamonds and $1,000 worth of COM
mon rubies. They picked them up at odd
times and in odd lots, and Arnold smug-
gled them into the country by way of
Quebec. Slack, who had been in South
Africa, selected the field-and Clarence
King said the immediate region was we'll
selected, tOo-and together they planted
them, poking them down one by one with
slim steel rods. They also scattered some
into a gravel bank with a shotgun, and
it was this last method that King detect
ed by the powder stains.
THE company burst up at once and
Ralston and the rest set about recovering
a portion Of the money. Lent and Roberts
hunted up Arnold, in Kentucky, and it
was said by some he gave up portion of
the money, but others affirm that he never
did. Several suits were begun, and not
long after Arnold was murdered in a local
quarrel. 1t was clean steal Of about
million dollars.