Diamond industry

“ A contemporary recalls how at a meeting of a mining board in 1876, when the members were 'fractious and impatient,' Rhodes, 'still quite a youth, was able to control that body of angry men.' As regards the diamond industry he, like his rival Bamato, already recognised that so long as individual diggers produced and threw upon the uncertain markets all the diamonds they could find, no real progress was possible, and that the remedy lay in an amalgamation of interests and the regulation of supply. ”

“ A recent application of the diamond is for wire drawing; a hole tapering towards the centre is drilled through a diamond, and the metal is drawn through this. No other tool is so endurable, or gives such uniform thickness of wire.
Distribution and Mining.—The most important localities for diamonds have been: (1) India, where they were mined from the earliest times till the close of the 19th century; (2) South America, where they have been mined since the middle of the 18th century; and (3) South Africa, to which almost the whole of the diamond-mining industry has been transferred since 1870. ”

“ Since then the industry has gradually developed. Many of the European diamond workers who came over to America remained and carried on their art; and the movement then begun has become permanent. New York is now recognized as one of the chief diamond-cutting centres; there are some 500 cutters, and the quality of work done is fully equal, if not superior, to any in the Old World. So well is this fact established that American-cut diamonds are exported and sold in Europe to a considerable and an increasing extent. ”

“ First we were to send a large sample of the diamonds to Tiffany, of New York, then, as now, the greatest American authority on precious stones, and have them thoroughly examined and appraised. If their value were proved beyond peradventure, then Messrs. Ralston, Lent, Roberts, Dodge and myself were to choose a mining expert to whom Arnold and Slack agreed to exhibit the diamond fields and permit a full examination of the same.
Nothing could possibly be fairer to all, and Arnold and Slack easily consented to these conditions, without a moment’s hesitation. ”

“ The purchasing power of the West Germans, British, French and Italians had improved to the point where the flight of jewelry was from the United States to Europe. The time had come when the baubles were more important to the buyers than American dollars.
Despite the ebb and flow of the diamond trade, diamonds remain one of the most tightly controlled commodities in the world. Each diamond-producing country tries to police the production to maintain price stability—since diamonds are an important means of earning dollar exchange. ”

“ Now, suddenly, and as yet secretly, the diamond output of the world has been increased fiftyfold—that is, gentlemen, within the year I can place another billion dollars' worth of diamonds, at the prices that hold now, in the open market ”

“ For many years past a great deal of time and money has been spent in the attempt to make artificial diamonds. Quite apart from its use in articles of jewellery, the diamond has many very important industrial applications, its value lying in its extreme hardness, which is not equalled by any other substance. ”

“ The description of the properties of diamond would not be complete without a reference to the other valuable, if utilitarian, purposes to which it is put. Without its aid much of modern engineering work and mining operations would be impossible except at the cost of almost prohibitive expenditure of time and money. ”

“ One of the public journals of London lately spoke of a proposed corporation, to be known as the "Diamond Trust," which is certainly a significant evidence that the market requires to be carefully controlled as to the quantity which is annually put upon it. In old times a diamond was simply valued as a diamond ”

“ This large increase of importation is due to the fact that in the years 1882 to 1885 a number of our jewelers opened diamond cutting establishments, but the cutting has not been profitably carried on in this country on a scale large enough to justify branch houses in London, the great market for rough diamonds, where advantage can be taken of every fluctuation in the market and large parcels purchased, which can be cut immediately and converted into cash; for nothing is bought and sold on a closer margin than rough diamonds. ”

“ The soundness of the investment of money in our Diamond Mining scrip under the diminished cost of working, owing to the extension of the railway, the increased care taken in the searching department, and consequently increased yield of diamonds, has been lately much taken advantage of by European capitalists, and at the present time I have never, for years, known the Fields in a more prosperous condition. ”

“ Although we believe that there are immense diamond placers yet to be discovered in Africa, Asia, and America, we do not think that the gem will ever lose its high rank in the wants of fashion and ornamentation, or that its price will ever again descend to the valuation of 1848 except in transient times of far-extended commercial distress. The misfortunes of any one country will not affect the established price to any great extent, since the demand from other countries is so great as to preserve a well-marked equilibrium. ”

“ With very few exceptions—who do not often make fortunes—they belong to the chosen race.
The scraps of the conversation which one hears as one passes along the street generally relates to matters affecting the trade. That is a somewhat wide margin, for all public events, from a threatened European war to the death of some dusky potentate, more or less influence diamonds. But most of the talk is of the precious stones themselves and the mines in which they are found—of falls of reef in Kimberley, and of the price of glassy stones, cape whites, off-coloured stuff, and boart. ”

“ Like gold, the diamond was made rare, so that it must be searched for, and the mines and deposits contain less of these two substances in a given area than of any other known materials. It is thirty to a hundred times more rare than gold, for if gold occurs one part in 250,000, it can scarcely be worked with profit, while the diamond can be worked to advantage when found only one part in 10,000,000,—yes, even one part in 25,000,000—and, like gold, it sometimes spurs the searcher on to wealth or to ruin. ”

“ Manager Grost told Urleigh that he had found no trace of Goles anywhere; neither had the diamonds nor rubies been recognized in any of the legitimate marts—but that meant nothing. The Diamond Trade had its Under World, through which wandered gems as precious and perhaps a thousand times more interesting than anything one could learn about the legitimate traffic of the surface trade, which by comparison is prosy and uneventful. The $200,000 worth of diamonds had sunk into this Under World, leaving hardly a trace. ”

“ On the favorable outcome of the valuation and the engineer’s report concerning the diamond deposits, we agreed to take care of the financial end. Not connected with any agreement with Arnold or Slack, was a plan to facilitate the passage of a law whereby a great territory of mining land could be taken up so as to insure to ourselves the entire field, no matter what the extent. ”

“ The advent of a lovely woman, duchess or actress, into the world affects the diamond market as the sensitive plant is affected by the approach of a human hand. A thousand waves and wheels are set in motion. Dealers, designers, skilled workmen, and common cutter—all feel the magnetic thrill. Even the thieves in the underworld become busier and greater quantities of raw diamonds are stolen. Buyers make hurried journeys to Amsterdam and Antwerp. ”

“ For centuries men have tried to discover the secret of transmuting base metals into gold, and how to make diamonds by chemical means. But they have all been failures,"
"All except this process—the process used at Phantom Mountain," insisted the queer man. ”

“ India, with its millions of people who prefer to invest their gains in a gem to all other known property, will furnish an eager market for the diamond for many ages to come. The history of the influx and absorption of silver by that country furnishes an interesting parallelism. ”

“ No method of manufacturing merchantable diamonds has ever been discovered. A French chemist claims to have made very minute crystals of diamond by an extremely expensive process, simply to prove that the thing is possible, but the crystals, whether diamonds or not, were of no value as gems or for any other commercial or mechanical purpose. For anything more on this subject see Our Curiosity Shop for 1882, page 147. Price per mail, 25 cents in paper covers and 50 cents in cloth. ”

“ The diamond is considered of the most value, still its intrinsic value is but trifling; by heat it can be burned like other coal; I esteem gold as more valuable, for it cannot be consumed by fire. We would like to have a little of this metal, for how much better would it be to drink out of a gold cup than out of an old rusty tin basin. ”

“ To meet and neutralize the influence of this condition of affairs, the South African diamond-mining companies have limited production, which for the time has advanced prices. But the tendency obviously is for diamonds to decline in value ”

“ We will consider first the diamond, not because we regard it the foremost in interest among minerals, but because it is to-day reckoned commercially, as it was in the time of the Latin philosopher, Pliny, nearly two thousand years ago, “Maximum in rebus humanis,”—“The most costly of human possessions.” But we must, however, slightly modify the remark, and now apply it to the rare colored varieties of the gem, since commerce and refined taste rank the red sapphire far above the colorless diamond in value, and sometimes even the emerald and rare blue sapphires exceed it in price. ”

“ Diamonds in Africa have aided commerce, increased exportation and importation, indirectly helping the people at large, but they have not competed with gold in the political potentialities. They are found, when their stories are written, to be rather romantic than historical. Their is a fascination in the relation of the finding of South African diamond mines equal to the charms of fiction. ”

“ Diamonds from one carat to four or five carats, when skilfully cut into brilliants, lose in the process a little less than half their weight: hence the value of a cut stone is twice that of a rough one of equal weight, exclusive of the cost of workmanship.
The diamond cutters of England are confessedly the best in Europe, but the Dutch have engrossed almost all the trade, as we are unable to compete with their prices, labor being so much lower in Holland. ”

“ As I say, I had assumed that the notes of the process had perished with the professor. You now tell us that he handed them to you. Well, I make no bones about it that though from a purely scientific point of view the process fails, yet—er—from a business point of view it is not one that any of us would care to have noised abroad. You will understand that if diamonds, which except to the eye of the most practical expert are real, can be made cheaply it will—er—not be a good thing for those who are interested in the diamond market. ”

“ Apart from their inferior hardness and colour, the demand for what are known as “semi-precious stones” would not pay for the necessarily great expenses of the factory. Moreover, were it to be known that they were being produced artificially the demand—never very great—would almost cease. The only other gems, therefore, which need be mentioned in connexion with their artificial formation are those of the corundum or sapphire class, which include all the most highly prized gems, rivalling, and sometimes exceeding, the diamond in value. ”

“ I have scarcely thanked you enough for what you did for us in erecting your wireless station on Earthquake Island, which, as you recall, I predicted would sink into the sea. It did, I am glad to say, not because I like to see islands destroyed, but because science has been vindicated. Now I have just heard you remark that you are about to set off to the mountains in search of some men who are making diamonds. I need hardly state that this is utterly useless, for no diamonds, commercially valuable, can be made by men. ”

“ From the dull earth comes the bright sparkle of the diamond. Early prospectors, as gold-hunters panned the streams, sifted the surface gravel. When likely spots were located, men and machines began to dig. At Kimberly, the mine shaft is more than 3500 feet deep. One diamond may be secured for each 21 million parts of ore; but gem diamonds in the larger sizes are so much more rare than industrials or gems in the smaller sizes that more than 250 tons must be mined to yield a stone that can be cut and polished into a one-carat gem. ”

“ The price of diamonds is subject to considerable fluctuations, which, proceeding from the markets of London, Paris, and Amsterdam, are most sensibly felt in the diamond districts, for the great European houses in whose hands the trade of the rough stones is concentrated, and who dispose of considerable capital, are able to wait for better times, while the small Brazilian trader or miner is soon obliged, for want of money, to sell his stones at any price. ”

“ For the high price of the diamond is purely fictitious. It is in the first place kept up by limiting the output of the natural stone by the combination of dealers and, further, the diamond is valued not for its usefulness or beauty but by its real or supposed rarity. Chesterton says: "All is gold that glitters, for the glitter is the gold." This is not so true of gold, for if gold were as cheap as nickel it would be very valuable, since we should gold-plate our machinery, our ships, our bridges and our roofs. ”