The Bottineau pioneer. (Bottineau, N.D.) 1885-1895, 1895-01-26


the tramp ana assumed something Of
the easy tone of an educated man
"are to be made by throwing carbon
out of combination in a suitable lux
and under a suitable pressure! the car
bon crystalliZes out, not as black lead
or charcoal powder, but as small dia-
monds. So much as been shown to
chemists for years, but no one has yet
hit upon exactly the right fiux in which
to melt UP the carbon or exactly the
right pressure for the best results.
Consequently the diamonds made by
chemists are small and dark and
worthless as jewels. Now I, you know
have given up my life to this problem
given my life to it.
II began to work ut the conditions of
diamond making when I was II, and
now / an 80. 1t seemed to me that
it might take all the thoughts and IN
ergies Of a man for ten years or twenty
years, but ever If it did the game was
still worth the candle. Suppose one to
have at last just hit the right trick
before the secret got out and diamonds
became as common as coal, one might
realize millions. Millions!"
He paused and looked for my sym-
pathy. His eyes shone hungrily. "To
think" said he, that I Inn on the verge
of it all, and here"
Il had" he proceeded, "about G1.OOO
when I was Fl. and this, I thought.
eked out by a little teaching, would
keep my researches going. A year or
two was spent in study, at Berlin. chief
ly, and then I continued on my own &C.
count. The trouble was the secrecy.
You see if one / had let out what I
was doing other men might have been
spurred on by my belief in the practi-
cabiIty of the idea, and I do not pre-
tend to be such a genius as to have
been sure Of coming in first in a race
for the discovery. And you see it was
important that if 1 really meant to
make a pile people should not know it
was an artificial process and capable
of turning out diamonds by the ton.
So I had to work al alone. At first ]
had a little laboratory, but as my re
sources began to run out l had to con.
duct my experiments in a wretched
unfinished room in a Kentish town.
where I slept at last OF a straw mat.
tress on the floor amongst all my apEa
ratus. The money simply flowed away.
I grudged myself everything except
scientific appliances. I tried to keep
things going by a little teaching, but l
am not a very good teacher, and / have
no university degree nor very much
education except in chemistry, and I
found I had to give a lot of time and
labor for precious little money. But I
got nearer and nearer the thing. Three
years ago l settled the problem of the
composition of the flux and got near
the pressure by putting this fiux of
mine and q certain carbon combination
into a closed-up gun barrel, filling up
with water, sealing tightly and heat
ing"
He paused.
Rather risky" said I.
eyes. 1t burst and smashed all my
windows and a lot of my apparatus,
but I got a kind of diamond powder
nevertheless. Following out the prob
lem Of getting a big pressure upon the
molten mixture from which the things
were to crystalize, I hit upon some re-
searches Of Daubree's at the Paris
Laboratoire des Poudres ct Saltpetres.
He exploded dynamite in a tightly
screwed steel cylinder, too strong to
burst, and I found he could crush rocks
into a muck not unlike the South Afrf-
a bed in which diamonds are found.
It was a tremendous strain on my re-
sources, but I got a steel cylinder made
for my purpose after his pattern. I
put in all my stuff and my explosives,
built up a fire IN my furnace, put the
whole cO2Ce.n iii, and-went out for a
walk"
I could not help laughing at his mat
ter of fact n Did you think 1T
would blow up the house? Were there
other people in the placer
1T was in the interest of science"
he said ultimately. There was a cos
termODger family on the floor below,
a begging letter-writer in the room be-
hind mine and two flower women were
upstairs. Perhaps it was a bit thought
less. But possibly some Of them were
out.
"When I came back the thing was
just where I left it, among the white
hot Goals. The explosive hadn't burst
the case. And then 1 had a problem
to face. You know time is an impor-
tant element in crystalization. If you
hurry the process the crystals are small
1T is only by prolonged standing that
they grow to any size. I resolved to let
this apparatus cool for two years, let
ting the temperature 60 down slowly
during that time. And I was now
quite out Of money, and, with a big fire
as well as my hunger to keep going, I
had scarcely a penny in the world.
II can hardly tell you the shifts I
was put to while I was making the
diamonds. 1 have sold newspapers,
held horses and opened cab doors. For
many weeks I addressed envelopes. I
had a place as assistant to q man who
owned a barrow, and I used to call
down one side Of the road while he
called down the other. Once for q
week 1 had absolutely nothing to do,
and I begged. What q week that was!
One day the fire was going out, and I
had eaten nothing all day, and a little
chap taking his girl out gave me six
pence to show off. Thank heaven for
vanity! How the fish shops smelt!
But I went and spent it all on Goals and
had the furnace bright red again, and
then. Well, hunger makes a fool
Of a man.
AT last, three weeks ago I let the
fire out. I took my cylinder and un-
screwed it while it was still so hot that
it punished my hands, and / scraped
out the %crumbling, lava-like mass with
a chisel, and hammered 1t into a pow
der upon an iron plate. And I found
three big diamonds and five small ones.
As I sat on the floor hammering my
door opened and my neighbor, the beg
ging letter-writer, came In. He was
drunk as he usually Is. "Nerchist,'
said he. You're drunk said I. Struct-
I've scoundrel,' said he. 60 to your
Iarner,' SAID I, meaning the rarher OF
lies. Never you mind said he, and