The Evening statesman. [volume] (Walla Walla, Wash.) 1903-1910, 1906-06-14
WORTH OVER TWO HUNDRED MILLIONS
ORIGIN OF THE RARE AND PREc.
tOUs STONES is A DEEP
MYSTERY.

permanent citizen of Washington, after
having served nearly twenty years in
South Africa as general manager of
the De Beers diamond mines, undoubt-
edly the most profitable business en-
terprise in the world, as well as one of
the most interesting. While he was in
charge. from March, 1889, until July,
1905, they produced $2SS,651, 2SO worth
of diamonds, and paid in dividends the
normous sum of $117,S12,915.
The Calumet and Hecia copper mines
of Michigan, which are generally sup
posed to be the most valuable mineral
property in the world, paid $S7.S5O. 600
in dividends up to the same date
The De Beers and Kimberley mines
produced diamonds to the value of
$246,S1S,9S5 under Mr.. Williams man.
agement, and the other properties of
the company, the WesseltOn, produced
$23,OO3.96O; the Blufontein $1,723,555,
and the Jagersfontein $17.OO5, $50.
Mr.. Williams has retired from bust
ness, has bought a lot on the corner
of r and Twenty second streets. and
is going to build himself a home there.
having selected Washington as the
most attractive and satisfactory place
to live of all the cities he has seen.
He went from California to South
Africa in 1884, to be superintendent
of the De Beers mines, and in 1887 be-
came general manager. Since then
he has had all of the South African
property of that great company under
his charge until 1905, when his son.
Alpheus Williams, succeeded him. The
latter was educated at the University
of California, went to South Africa in
1898 to become an assistant to his
father and, during the last year, has
been in entire control.
Diamond Is a Mystery.
When 1 asked Mr.. Williams, what
is diamond, and where did it come
from, he modestly admitted that he
did not know. He said that he had
handled hundreds of millions of dollars
worth of them, but latter seventeen
years of thoughtful study, coupled
with practical research, 1 find it easier
to drive a coach and four through the
theories which have been propounded
than to find evidence to sustain them.
All that can be said is that in some
unknown manner carbon, which existed
down deep in the internal regions of
the earth, was mysteriously changed
by some process of nature from its
black and uninviting appearance to the
most beautiful gem that ever saw the
light of day.
1.-THE chemical composition of dia-
monds has been long determined, at
least approximately Sir Isaac Newton
cOnjectured it to be of vegetable origin
and cOmbustible, but it was not until
1894 that Newton's assumption of its
combustibility was actually proven;
and finally the experiments of Sir
Humphrey Davy in 1915 showed that
it is almost entirely pure carbon. But
the process of the formation or crys-
utilization of the diamond carbon is
still uncertain. The proofs are most
conclusive that the diamonds in the
South African mines were not form
ed in stu, but have been driven up
from below by volcanic action. 1 have
been of the opinion that diamonds
We're crystallized in very much the
same way as quartz or other minerals,
but under peculiar circumstances, pos
sibly of pressure and heat, that gave
them their remarkable individuality
and beauty.
No End of Theories.
There are, as 1 have said, no end
of theories to explain how they were
made and how they happened to be
buried in old volcanic craters. Sir
William Crooks concluded that the
diamonds found in South African
mines are a crystalization of pure car
bon in molten masses of iron which
forms a part of the internal regions
of the earth Another great chemist
believes that a diamond is the crystal
lization of carbonic acid gas reduced
to a LIQUID state by enormous pressure
in a subaqueous volcano, While we
have another fantastic theory from
Meydenbauer, a German chemist, tna'
the dimaond came with the fall OF me-
teors. a direct gift from heaven. Sl1
William Crookes does not consider this