Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1899-09-30

water convict station at Capetown for per-
haps ten years. where he is employed in ex-
cavating for the new docks One of the
most distressing scenes in South Africa Is
the march Of these men from prison to
work through the streets surrounded by a
regiment Of guards. One entire section is
made up Of Americans, and among them
Is the son of ex-congressman and the
scion of famous New Orleans family.
Sometimes Successful.
To be a successful diamond thief there
! fore requires the utmost cleverness, but
the detectives at Kimberley will tell you of
many instances when they have been out
witted. An American from Chicago who
owns saloon in johannesburg. wears on
his shirt bosom one of the finest stones to
be seen on the Rand and glortes in telling
how he beat the Kimberley sleuths by
feeding the diamond in bunch of hay to
his horse. He rode the animal out of Cape
Colony, pursued by the officers, until he
got over the border into the Transvaal,
where he cut the horse open and took out
his prize
Another man got ahead of the detectives
by loading his gun with about $50 carats.
Suspicion rested on him and he was fol-
lowed. but escaped detection by firing the
charge into an OK. When the detectives
left he cut out the stones and made for the
Transvaal. which is the haven of the I. d.
B. men. great many diamonds have
been stolen by feeding them to chickens
and shipping the latter to Johannesburg.
America has proved a bonanza for Mr..
Rhodes and mis- syndicate. 1t is chiefly
owing to our increased demand that the
prices have been raised. Mr.. George f.
kunZ, the Tiffany expert, who knows more
about diamonds than any one else in Amer
lea, has just completed his annual report
on the production of precious stones in 1898
for the Department of the Interior, United
States geological survey, and therein pre-
cnrOniClG
greatest Importation into the United States
that has ever been known and further
advance in prices.
Wisconsin Diamonds.
In the meantime mineralogists are won
dering if America may not do much toward
breaking the combines power by supply
ing diamond fields. The newspapers
for five or six years have occasionally
printed the announcement that a fine dia-
mond had been found near Milwaukee in
Wilconsin. These stories have been regard
ed by the public of no particular import
ance. but not so by the mineralogists. From
all over the world experts have come to
study that field. The way in which the
stones have turned up has been mysterious
Diamonds are the result of certain def
mite geological processes. They are the pro-
duct of enormous heat and stupendous
pressure, both brought to bear upon carbon
geographical formations in which this curl
Gus process has gone on are known as
chimneys. They are really comparatively
small vents through which enormous guam
titles of matter have been expelled quickly
by means of some volcanic CONFUSION with
in the earth Mother Nature in pushing
great quantity of practically molten matter
containing carbon through hole too small
for it, brought about those two necessary
conditions for the production of diamonds
heat and pressure.
But biologists when they went to To-
calities where diamonds had been found
in Wisconsin were puzzled by the fact that
no formation of the chimney kind existed
anywhere about 1t finally decided
that the stones must have been brought
from some great distance by a glacier
which dropped them when it melted. One
of the great jewelry firms in New York
sent its ceiebra ted expert to Wisconsin to
study the course of this glacier, hoping to
find chimneys at the point where it start
ed This expert did trace the glacier and
there found a chimney. There was only
one. and it had been worked out Facts
indicated that this was done by a German
mineralogist who was known to have been
IN that locality some years before. He had
quietly worked out the chimney. taken
what stones he found, and finding no other
demonstrating spots. had gone back to
Germany, saying nothing to any one of his
find.
A New York firm has spent thousands
or dollars in studying the so-caled Mil
Waukee fields, but have at last abandoned
the enterprise 1t is by no means certain.
however. that in America will not be found
diamond fields of enormous richness Ge-
oiosists and mineralogists agree that no
where else on earth exist conditions more
likely to develop diamond producing for
nations. An Intelligent scientific search
for these diamond fields, which scientists
believe are hidden somewhere on this con-
tinent. Is continually going on and some
day we may all wake up and find that
the klondike craze was nothing to the
diamond craze which will then exist,