The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1894-08-20
ARTIFICIAL JEWELS
RUBIEs WE'RE MADE LONG AGO AND
NOW DIAMONDS HAVE A TURN.
A Frenchman Has Discovered Several
Ways of CrystaIizing the Gems
Too Small for Much Use.
Boston Globe.

The synthesis of precious stones is an
achievement toward which chemical sci
ence has been steadily tending for many
years past, and various circumstances have
combined to make it the scientific topic of
the hour in London at the present time.
1t is topic of many aspects. scientific,
social and poetical. 1t has aroused the
widest interest in a circle whose family
gems and jeweled heirlooms have hitherto
been invested with the dignity of antiquity
and associations, and also with a very
clear commercial value in case of financial
need.
This has not gone very well with the
English aristocracy of late years, and the
revelations just made by Professor Judd,
at the Royal Institution, concerning the
established manufacture of artificial rubies,
have had a personal as well as scientific
interest which has been notably augmented
by the arrival at the rooms of the Royal
Society Of one of the Moissan furnaces Tor
making diamonds, the first which has been
permitted to leave the inventors laboratory
in Paris.
At the same time two litigants have gone
to court over a pearl, for which 5000 was
paid by a gentleman who supposed himself
a judge of pearls, but who nevertheless
bought one in this instance which turned
out to be synthetic With diamonds made
from sugar, rubies, sapphires and en-
eralds from ordinary clay, and pearls from
chalk the social world has had very
interesting subject for discussion.
The POLITICALLY inclined have found a
fruitful theme upon whic.. TO den0unce the
iconoclastic advance of materialiStic sci
ence and the loss of the poetry, mystery
and fascination Of precious stones, which
attributes must inevitably disappear in the
presence of crucibles, chemicals and com
mercial receptions. On the other hand;
those minds which are chiefly interested
the wearing of all fragments of rock
weakness which cannot too soon, for our
own credit, be abandoned entirely TO the
nose-piercing and ear-boring savage in the
dress parades OF ETHIOPIA.
ARTIFICIAL RUBIES.
Artificial rllbies have already reached a
stage of successful manufacture which
causes these gems to be considered with
caution in the trade. Artificial sapphires
and emeralds of any size are less COM
mon, because natural stones of these kinds
| are less valuable, and the reward for their
successful creation is not so great The
| synthetic pearl is being so steadily per-
| fected in the laboratories Of France, Ger
many and Switzerland that before long
the ordinary buyer will have to trust en-
| tirely to the integrity of the 1eweler, since
he will be totally unable to distinguish the
chemical from the natural GEM Last OF
| all the diamond. battling CHEMISTS for cen
turiess has succurnbed to the persistent
efforts of a clever young Frenchman, for
| the reports which come from Paris last
year are all true, and the Moissan artiti-
| cial diamonds are pure, hmpid ana uhms-
taxable stones of their kind.
All the diamonds yet produced by the
Moissan furnace are, like the first rubies
so small as TO be commercially nsigniti-
| caur They are unquestionabe diamonds
| however, and Henri Moissan will pass into
| history as the first chemist who succeeded
| in making the diamond, while his efforts
| ahsta Will "A
| among the permanent records. Whether
| diamond making to-day occupies the posi-
| ton of ruby making in 1S47 or 1877 only
| Mo.ssan's present experiments and the next
few years can satisfactorily determine
| The diamond furnace has attracted so
| much attention from the Royal Society set,
| and particularly the women members there
| of, that Moissan's failure to accompany
| it to London and the reasons therefor have
| caused some interesting gossip. The dia-
| mond maker is a young man, as the ages
| OF scientists are reckoned. being only thirty
| three years of age. He was trained in the
| laboratories of the College of France, and
| was Bertholot's favorite pupil. His apti-
| manipulation and his resources when in
| difficulty marked him as chemist who
would be heard from, and the veteran syn
| thesist early took the student under his
| wing and made him familiar with all the
| great problems which synthetic chemistry
had set down for future ot eon9 M ib avatv
| upon leaving college, and in the laboratory
OF the Ecole Superiure de la Pharmaeie,
| istry, scored a number OF triumphs, which
were famously capped by his isolation OF
huorine an element which had never been
| obtained before that time in pure state.
So great was this triumph that Professor
Dunstan. of the Royal Society. who ,,,i Is |,
nroud of eTen being se st EngisRman
| who ever saw fluorine.
| THE FLUORINE PROCESS.
Molssan's fluorine process, which was re-
ported in the usual way, reached the Royal
Society and a chemical member at once
put it into practice He failed. however,
| to obtain free fuorine, and, what was
much more important, he so notified the
Royal Society. thereby impugning the
value of the discovery. Moissan was ex-
ceedingly wroth at this, and after quot
ing several other chemists who had OBJ
talned free fuorine by his method, courte-
ously suggested that the trouble lay with
the operator. Explanations followed, but
the inventor declined to be apDeased, and
according TO his friends, retains the shadow
Of his feeling toward the Royal Society to
The first work of Moissan's which
fenced TO diamond production began in his
college days, the synthesis of the dia-
mond having been one of the problemS,
marked out by Berthelot. who had tried
many devices without success Moissan
made no important advance, however, until
in stroling through the Paris exhibition OF
1889 he came upon some of the n blue, d la
had been placed on exhibition by the DE
| Beers company He obtained some OF this
| clay and made careful examination of II
| under the microscope. He found in Ii ar
indefinite number of diamond crystals OF
microscopic size
With the trained eye which he brought &c
bear upon the little page of natural his
| tory before him he soon saw the whole
! chemical process by which the earth haC
| silently and secretly manufactured hel
| gems Carbon exists in three forms-char
pencils, and the diamond He found in the
clay a mixture of microscopic white dia
| monds, microscopic black diamonds anC
minute fragments of graphite. He ther
| suspected. what his later experiments es
tablished. that there is no sharp line o.
forms. the crystalline carbon taking or
greater and greater degrees of hardnes!
| and the graduation being imperceptible be
| tween graphite whose density is two, anC
that of the pure white diamond, which
stands at three and five-tenths.
HOW DIAMONDS ARE FORMED.
Diamonds in nature are formed by tn
equalization of carbon, usually from it
solution in some molten metal. Two i'm
portant elements in the process are enor
nous pressure, such as was furnished h!
the cooling and contracting crust of tn
earth and long periods of time during
which the pressure was eXerted. To obtai
carbon in solution not difficult, sine
that element dissolves easily in many fuse,
metals. To obtain the great pressure re
quired was, however. a different matter
Mechanical means were out OF the ques
ton, and only the earth itself furnishe,
the suggestion. There are several metals
iron, silver and bsmuth, for instance
kn Nraf