The Austin weekly statesman. (Austin, Tex.) 1883-1898, 1895-06-13
DIAMONDS MADE TO ORDER

The good people can talk as they
please" said an Avenue jeweler yesterday
afternoon, "but we are going to be done
up on the diamond question within the
next few years. Yes, sir, l believe the
market for jewels will within n very few
years be permanently affected by some
thing more serious than trade depression"
! he continued, land that is the artificial
manufacture of precious stones. Some
of the greatest chemists in the world,
such as MOissan, Frenzy and Fell of
France; Kroutschoffof st. Petersburg,
and Traube, the German, have been
working OH the problem of how to prac-
tically initiate the known process by
which nature has made her gems. They
have not yet succeeded in making them
of marketable size, but the significant
| fact is that they have made them, and
it is only question of time and probably
a comparatively short time, when the
world will look to its laboratories rather
than to its mines for its supply of precious
stones.
Both Moissan and Kroutschoff have
realized what was so long regarded as
a scientific viSion-the crystaliZation of
carbon-and produced artificial diamonds
which, although so small as to be visible
only with a microscope, are as genuine
South African exhibit at the Worlds
fair. The Frenchman used iron in com
binati with carbon and the Russian
employed silver, but the process was in
all essential particulars the same. The
two substances were fused and then al
lowed to cool very slowly. This, from
all appearances, is the way nature made
her diamonds in the South African fields.
Molten mineral matter was forced up
from the inside of the earth by volcanic
action through q shale which is largely
carbon, and in the slow cooling which
followed the carbon became crystalized
here and there and formed diamonds.
"Imagine lady having her Diamonds,
as she does her ball dresses, made to Or
der. The only thing that may stand in
the way of the universal displacement of
natural stones by the artificial ones is
the fact that while we are such artifi-
cial creatures ourselves we always pre-
fer the natural to the artificial in the
things we buy. Rubies of marketable
size are now made by artifce. Both ru-
bies and sapphires have been made by
Frenzy and Fell in Paris. Both stones
are crystallized corundum, or oxide of al
minimum. These artificial gems are sold
to some extent in Paris, but the leaders
of fashion have, so far, not taken to
IeSdlulhS Nlltll uS ~
though they are as genuine, so far as
material and structure go, as any that
were ever mined. The process commonly
employed is to fuse small ruby sparks
which are comparatively cheap, by
means of electricity. This leaves little
bubbles, which can be detected by the
microscope and consequently the high
class jewelers. will not as rule carry
them on account Of the moral effect upon
the reputation of the house of having ar
tificial gems on sale, even though no at
tempt is made at deception. 1t is easy
to imagine, however, that this feeling
would be overcome if precious stones
made by chemists became a regular fea-
ture of the jewelry trade and there was
a steady demand for them, as there UNI
dOubtedly would be. Even the most eX-
elusive society women find it expedient
to economze occasionally, and as people
do not carry microscopes in ball rooms,
nobody would ever be the wiser if she
sometimes wore jewelry made by hand.
"The effect of this innovation in the
production Of gems will probably be felt
most by the large wholesale houses which
have a supply of natural ones on hand
when these begin to come on the market,