The record-union. [volume] (Sacramento, Calif.) 1891-1903, 1893-06-03
A HOPELESS EXPERIMENT.

l.
From the earliest time since men began
to examine into chemical affinities, GER
tain Of them have been imbued with the
idea that the processes of nature may be
so artificially repeated as to produce re-
suits not distinguishable from those of
nature. Thus, the alchemists believed
that certain metals could be transmitted
into gold; that elixirs might be prepared
that would give to the taker youth in the
place Of age; others, without raising any
doubt as to their sincerity, have held that
somewhere there is a fountain of life,
which, if partaken of under certain con-
ditions, will turn backward the wheel of
time in mans life so far as rejuvenation
is concerned.
Among the attempts to reverse or to
initiate nature has been that of making
diamonds. A few years ago a Sacra-
mento man went wild on this subject,
and devised machine of great strength
within which he exploded by electricity,
or tried to, certain gases with the hope
OF producing pure carbon in crystals,
otherwise diamonds. He went so far as
to spend small fortune in his attempt,
and to brighten half of Yolo County by
his explosions across the river, and then
he and his experimenting dropped out of
sight. Scores of others have operated in
a like direction and some have proceeded
so far as to produce what was claimed to
to be diamond dust.
Passing the suggestion that should any
of these experimentalists succeed their
invention would be valueless, because
the making of diamonds would destroy
the market for them, it may be safely
held that a diamond cannot be made by
man. However, new operator is now
in the field whose claims cast into deepest
shadow the hopes of the alchemists of the
middle ages. NJ. Moissan, Frenchman,
claims to have discovered a process for
the manufacture of diamonds and to have
actually produced such stones in frag-
mentary condition, but he does not hold
that he has yet made any stone of COM
mercial value. Since the time of Lavoi-
sier, modern chemists have been striving
to find some way of fusing carbon, and
that is what NJ. Moissam is now endeav-
oring to accomplish. But his process is
in some respects original, and a great
deal more reasonable than any that have
preceded it.
He holds that as iron at certain de-
gree of heat has the capacity of absorbing
carbon-a fact-he may so operate as to
have the particles that collect as the iron
cools crystalline, and that these crystals
will be diamonds. He therefore has
started out to construct a crucible that
will Withstand heat greater than any
! heretofore evolved. and he claims to have
so far succeeded that he can manage !. 4OOo
Fair. In this crucible he has his pure
gas, and as the iron cools under enor-
nous pressure he secures certain crys-
tails of carbon. His first products have
been mainly black crystals with here
and there translucent one. that appar-
entity had all the qualities of the diamond,
as the power to endure heat. to cut ru-
bies, to burn at certain temperature. as
the Florenunes ages ago discovered that
the diamond could be burned. etc. The
microscope disclo ses the fact that these
crystals have the true diamond forma-
ton, but beyond that no progress has
been made.
All the value that attaches to NJ. Mois-
sans discovery thus far is confirmation
of the theory, as writer in the Nine
tenth Century puts it, that Tin steel and
castiron the carbon is not simply diffused
through the metal, but enters with it into
@me of those combinations in definite
proportions, which like all solutions oc-
eupy an intermediate position between
real chemical compounds and purely
physical mixtures" This sheds some
3
origin of diamonds found in meteoric
iron. 1t also gives some aid to chemical
research in other directions, so that the
/ Frenchman's experiments will not prove
wholly valueless. But that he or any
one else will ever be able to so initiate
4 the fabrication OF nature as to produce
/ genuine stones is not only improbable,
/ but in the very nature of things impos-
sible. Indeed, it may be said with ac-
curacy, that in nothing has the
imitation of nature been perfect
nor has her formula ever been
exactly repeated, nor is there anything
known to science to justify the hope thai
man can by artificial processes evolve the
same products that nature turns out from
her wondrous and mysterious crucible.
TuE Santa Trr7z