Noah Brooks

“ Barnard despised as absurd and chimerical the old notion of the alchemists, that gold could be made by transmutation, and cheerily he laughed at the vain dream that had tempted so many to poverty, desperation, and death. His was not a vulgar and ignorant fancy that gold, a primitive element, could be made by man ”

“ Barnard was too proud to be an object of charity, but took freely whatever was offered him, with the unabashed confidence of one whose millions were not yet subject to sight drafts. Finding that ready money must be had to furnish materials and machinery for a great and crucial experiment, he conceived the plan of getting up a joint stock company, and the little knot of faithful friends who stood by him still consented to become stockholders in the California Diamond Crystallization Company. ”

“ Carbon was always a favorite subject of Dr. Barnard's studies, and he pursued the subtle element through all its tortuous changes and _ multifarious forms. Nobody but a scientific man could understand the variety of his experiments and the wonderful results at which he arrived, in his thirsty chase for all that could be known concerning his favorite subject. "Carbon," he would say, "pervades all nature in one form or another. It gives strength and solidity to the humble plant beneath our feet; it is in the air we breathe and in the food we eat ”

“ Ata safer distance from the machine, eight stockholders in the California Diamond Crystallization Company, with various feelings, but with dry jokes still uttered with their bated breath, sat upon a rail fence. The moment was sublime. Phineas Goodson said, "She biles!" Then the lever was turned in the Doctor's hand; there was a fierce rending of the air, as if heaven and earth had come together; the solid earth trembled for miles around; birds fell dead from the astonished sky, with fragments of iron and steel; Dr. Barnard ascended, it is averred, fifty feet perpendicularly in the air ”

“ So our young machinist, compassionating Barnard, or half-ashamed of a hidden belief, permitted the unwearied experimenter to use his shop, tools and materials with a liberal hand. The good fellow, half laughing, half crying at the doctor's wild delusion, worked on the new machine whenever he had a moment to spare, and surrendered all his little resources to his call. ”

“ The iron globe had been charged with the mysterious compound. The battery was ready to be attached by a single turn of a lever to the wires which led out into the level space where the great, rude sphere lay sleeping in the sun, holding in its iron heart its tremendous secret. ”

“ Then I remember the dreamy veil that seemed to shut down at times over his clear blue eye, and the queer abstraction that interrupted the ripple of his bright talk, and I ask myself if this was a premonition of his fate, like that vague, far-off look that old philosophers say belongs to those who are destined to die by violence. ”

“ The story is told for the purpose of interesting the reader in the career of a man who was never well understood, and not to illustrate any principle of science. I have a very dim idea of the value of the experiments in chemistry in which the interest of my little sketch chiefly centres, and must disclaim in advance all attempt to give the reader any scientific information whatever.
With the earlier rush of emigration to the State of California, there arrived at Sacramento, then a straggling town of huts and tents, John Barnard, a young physician, full of enthusiasm and hungry for excitement. ”

“ As his medical practice increased, and calls on his time grew more frequent, Barnard complained good-humoredly that he had too much professional business to allow himself as much leisure for scientific diversion as his craving passion required. ”

“ There seems to be some subtle charm in the personal influence of dreamy visionaries by which they capture some practical men, and the oddly matched couple—enthusiast and unbeliever—jog on together, bearing and dividing a queer burden. ”

“ And while no man could be more healthy and vigorous in his mental and moral organization, there was a certain flavor of mystery pervading all his warm and _ hearty nature that perplexed and bothered those who knew him. ”

“ I do not know enough about such things to be able to take the responsibility of that statement, but it was made of two cups—tubs, rather—each holding ten plates, forty-two inches in diameter. It was said to be of sufficient power to kill a hundred men at one shock. The experiment was never fairly tried.
I have not the heart to describe the repeated failures and reversals, the disappointments and rising and falling hopes with which the work went on during the summer months of 1860. There were numerous disasters of breaking tools, spoiled castings, and unexpected obstacles. ”

“ There were others, however, who would not forsake the good doctor, and now that his own and his wife's property had been greatly diminished by his expensive experiments, and his income was far below what it had been, were ready to encourage the hopeful enthusiast in science with substantial aid. ”

“ Barnard was too honest to im-. pose upon others, and too deeply versed in science to be imposed upon. The globe had been hopelessly fissured by the shock, and it required the united labors of Barnard and his friends for several hours to clear out the bore of the machine so as to reacl. the crusted stone that slept within. After dividing the town into two distinct factions, the: stone was sent to Antwerp to be cut and tested. Ten months passed away and it came back, a straw-colored diamond, with a whitish flaw in it, dull and smoky enough, but a diamond, nevertheless. ”