The Goldfield news. [volume] (Goldfield, Nev.) 1904-1911, 1905-07-14
ABOUT DIAMONDS
Written for The News.
By M. J. CooNEY.

town of Bartica. Since discovery to
date considerable diamond mining has
been done, and at present is conducted
as a steady profitable business by sew.
eral small companies operating a~lluvial
diggings.
Right here in the United States dia-
monds have been found by mere acci-
dent in the north, south, east and west
of this great resourceful republic,
which will without question of doubt
through intelligent prospecting-as-
tonish the world with it's diamond dis
coveries in the near future. The ex-
listing geological conditions favorable
to diamonds are spread throughout the
nation. In the United States there are
two principal d~iamondiferous regions;
one zone stretches along the southern
Al~leghanies from Virginia to Georgia,
while the other zone extends along the
western base of the Sierra Nevada and
Cascade ranges in northern California
and southern Oregon. There is also
one MORE, bat of less Importance, in the
Kettle Moraine district of southern
| Wisconsin.
The Dewey diamond found at Man
chester, Va, 1856, weighed 23% car
ats. In various parts of North Caro-
lima were found eight or ten diamonds
from / to 4 carats each. Ten or twelve
counties of Georgia produced one or
more small diamonds each. South Car
DINA also produced some small stones.
Since 1875 diamonds have been found
in six different localities in Wisconsin
and one each in Michigan and Ohio.
From those discoveries in the Kettle
Moraine seven good sized stones were
found, one of which weighed 21h car
ats. The diamonds found in California
were in connection with placer mining,
some of which were in gravel under
lava beds, common to the Pacific slope.
The di~amondiferous localities of Cal
ifornia are in Trinity, Butte,
Amador and Ell Dorado counties.
The few stones found are small but of
first class quality and were found in
connections with minerals of divers
kinds, common to the best diamond
mines of India, Brazil, or South Africa,
viz: zyrcon, chromite, topaz, quartz,
epidote, pyrite, etc. Oregon and Mon
| fona oIcn nrnduonl N fo-, 1-ao-lu
One of considerable size and of good
quality was found some eighteen years
ago near Helena, Montana, in aurifer-
Gus gravel.
Strange, but true, that notwithstand-
ing the undeniable evidence of dia-
mondiferous ground being in many
! parts of the United States, yet there
never has been an effort made to pros
pect for the glittering treasures which
only await intelligent search to I'M
earth Golcondas in this country equal
to the best diamond producing mines
in South Africa. Inasmuch as the cit
liens of the United States buy year
after year more thar two-thirds of the
annual product of the earth, should be
in itself alone a forceful incentive to
prospect for diamonds in America.
The alluvial diamond fields of In
dia were practically exhausted and
the demand was more than equal to
the supply, though Brazil production
of gems was not yet on the wane,
when the discovery of diamonds in
South Africa was announced to the
world. Among pebbles gathered by a
child of a Boer farmer named Daniel
Jacobs on the Vaal river, near the
present town of Barley West, was
a stone of attractive brilliancy. The
farmer called the attention of John
O'Reilly, a trader, to the bright peb-
BILE, through whom it was subsequently
ascertained TO be a pure diamond.
From the finding of this diamond in
/ 1867, no more was discovered until
March, 1869, when a beautiful stone
of S3R carats was unearthed near the
place where the first recorded diamond
was picked up by young Jacobs, nearly
two years before. The .'star of Afri-
ca'' was bought about this time from
an Aborigine "medicine MANI by a
trader for 500 sheep, and when cut
and polished was valued at $4,000.