The Intermountain Catholic. (Salt Lake City [Utah] ;) 1899-1920, 1907-09-14
ARKANSAS DIAMoND-MAD.
Pike County Farmers Hiding Away
Tons of Worthless Rock.
New York Tfnes.)


Little Rock, Ark, Sept. 2.-The find
| ing of a diamond deighing 1874 karats
| by d. B. Conway of Texarkana a few
days ago in a different section of Pike
county from that mentioned in recent
| bulletins as being the first discovery of
diamonds lin hplace" in America, has
set Arkansas diamond mad.
Farmers who own hillsides upon
which they have made only an indiffer-
ent living for a quarter of a century
have set fabulous figures on the land
over night, Notwithstanding the fact
that Little Rock, St. Louis and New
| York capitalists picked up every acre
in the county that gave any evidence of
diamond bearing dirt before the world
was appraised of the discovery.
They have deserted farm and house
hold duties and are putting in the hot
days trarnping the gullieS and hills.
digging and turning rocks and shale
slabs in a blind search for diamonds.
In dozens of cases there are entire
families not one member of which has
any idea of what a diamond is, except
that 1t can be taken to the bank and
traded for money. struggling over the
hills day after day.
Not one of them could tell a genuine
diamond from a slab of gypsum crys-
y
boarded. Probably it is not exaggera-
ton to say that tons of worthless rock
are being hidden out around the cabins
of Pike county. 1t does no good for
stranger to tell one of these diamond
mad natives that he is wasting his
time and gathering worthless stones.
He charges it to a scheme you have for
getting either the land or his rocks,
and so he goes on hiding the stones. =
You can see on nearly any part of the
hill section of Pike county parties of
men and women, boys and girls, bare
footed and bareheaded, scuttling
through the brush with wooden pals
and apron loads of rock that is not fit
even for making good roads.
The fact that the TeXarkana man
was offered 81. 500 for the stone he found
last week by the cashier of the bank of
Murfreesboro. has spread across the hill
regions as rapidly as the news OF a
shooting affraiy in which some noun
taineer has got even with neigh
Dor who shot his dog years ago.
Crops have been deserted. No long
stretches of corn or wheat or cotton are
known UP in that country, but the lit
tie patch" of corn and Irish potatoes
which, with hogs that fatten in the
woods on acorns, constitute the years
food supply, have been left to the weeds
and weather and the eXigencies of q
country where COWS and hogs wander
about the whole year for what they
may find to eat or destroy.
tTo most of the diamond hunters $500
means no more than $500, and It means
as much as $4,000: for anything over
$500 and under million means lots of
money" and that's all anything be-
tween the two sums mean except that
with lots of money one is able TO
hunt more and work less and go some
where"
In the outskirts of the hill country
some of the more intelligent have Dor
rowed money to prospect, buy options
and dig holes in search of the valuable
stones. Some of them mortgage or sell
their only team, others discount the flu |
ture by selling their little field of cot
ton on the stalk, and all of them will |
have to depend upon the game of the |
country and their credit at the cross
roads store for the necessities of life |
next winter.