Greene County herald. (Leakesville, Miss.) 1898-current, 1912-11-15
%<A EW Diamond Field" flashed.
90 ~ few days ago, the cables
~ around the world from lit
tie sDOt of blua ground in


V around the world from a lit
tie spot of blue ground in
Belgian Congo.
New Diamond Field!" joined COM
merce In the cry through It's men Of
Maiden Lane and their brother gem
experts in every capital
New Diamond Field!" echoed ad-
venture. tragedy, romance, keen as
over to take advantage of the find
For mystery and blood have followed
The costly crystal from the days In
dim antiquity when it glittered its
way through Indian mysticism to rest
On cleaning breast or in the hilt CT
"a kings rapier, writes Thomas Me-
Weigh, Jr., in the New York World.
The diamond!
! 1t sparkled first in the rich soil Of
India and rajahs over and over again
fought battles and shed blood for it.
1t has glistened in the eyes of idols
and been pried from them by hooters
ibayonets. For centuries it could be
owned only by king. 1T exceeds in
value all human things" said Pliny
one hundred years after the Redeemer
had shed on earth the radiance of his
personality. "The sin of Judah" said
Jeremiah, is written with a pen of
iron and the point Of diamond" And
once you find it in Exodus and once in
Ezekiel, and that closes its record in
the Bible.
The Greeks, three centuries before
Christ, called it the "unsubduable
stone"
The wise OF the middle ages called it
"Peacemaker between wife and hus-
band"
Its Latest Discovery.
4 A cable OF yesterday gave the world
the latest news of it.
That news trailed from the Kasai
river district in the Belgian Congo,
more Familiarity known by it's former
name of the Congo Free State, leads
under seas, over continents, across
Broadway, New York, through Liberty
street to a doorway marked 80. It
keeps on to the elevator, ascends
eleven floors, takes you to another
door, No. 11O9, enters and finishes it's
tourney at the desk Of Fortune
Thomas Fortune Ryan.
It official and confirmed, it an
nounces, and here it is: In 1906 Mr..
Ryan and group OF Belgian capital
lists took over under the name of the
international Society Of Forestry and
Mining of the Congo, as mining con-
cession, 10000 square miles in the
Belgian Congo. Prospectors at work
at Mai Munene, on the Kasai river and
at the mouth of Kabambale creek, SIS
miles northwest of Mai Munene. have
found diamonds beautifully clear. In
two weeks one man found $40 stones.
approximately 600 stones have been
found to date for about rs miles along
the Kasai river. The more northerly
of the finds are but Is miles from the
head OF navigation on the lower Kasaf,
on which stern-wheelers ply. The
largest of the stones weighed about
one carat Further reports, contin-
ued ''the news" naively, are awaited
with interest
Last Discovery In 1867.
1t has been forty-fve years, which
takes us back to 1857, since the last
diamond discovery news of fmpor-
lance reached New York and chat
came from a point in Africa, now
known as kimberley, about sixteen
hundred miles south of the Kasai river
district. Since then, because of that
discovery, s6O0,0O000O has been added
TO the worlds wealth
1t came about in this way:
Burgher Jacobs, to escape British
rule in Cape Colony, had settled on
a Dutch farm near Hopetown on the
Orange river. His children used to
play in the sand with bright pebbles
for marbles. Neighbor Schalk Van
Neikirk noticed one of the pebbles, re
marked that it might be valuable and
showed 1t to one Mr.. John O'Reilly, a
travelling trader. He In turn took It
to Colesberg, cut his initials with 1t
on the window of hotel and an
nounced that it was a diamond. 1t
found it's way TO Cape Town, where
M. Henriette,, French consul. declaring
ft genuine. sent 1t to the Paris Univer-
sal exhibition, where 1t was bought, q
magnificent 21-carat stone, for $4,000.
TWO years later Mr.. Schalk Van Mel
Kirk. still somewhat interested In
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