Appletons' Popular Science Monthly, November 1899: Volume LVI, No. 1Various
Science
Appletons' Popular Science Monthly, November 1899: Volume LVI, No. 1
Various
Science -- Periodicals; Technology -- Periodicals
In order clearly to set forth the nature of this problem and the method
of its solution it will be necessary, first, to plot upon a map of the
lake region the locality at which each of the stones has been found,
and, further, to enter upon the same map the data which geologists
have gleaned regarding the work of the great ice cap of the Glacial
period. During this period, not remote as geological time is reckoned,
an ice mantle covered the entire northeastern portion of our continent,
and on more than one occasion it invaded for considerable distances
the territory of the United States. Such a map as has been described
discloses an important fact which holds the clew for the detection of
the ancestral home of these diamonds. Each year is bringing with it new
evidence, and we may look forward hopefully to a full solution of the
problem.
In 1883 the "Eagle Stone" was brought to Milwaukee and sold for
the nominal sum of one dollar. When it was submitted to competent
examination the public learned that it was a diamond of sixteen carats'
weight, and that it had been discovered seven years earlier in earth
removed from a well-opening. Two events which were calculated to arouse
local interest followed directly upon the discovery of the real nature
of this gem, after which it passed out of the public notice. The woman
who had parted with the gem for so inadequate a compensation brought
suit against the jeweler to whom she had sold it, in order to recover
its value. This curious litigation, which naturally aroused a great
deal of interest, was finally carried to the Supreme Court of the State
of Wisconsin, from which a decision was handed down in favor of the
defendant, on the ground that he, no less than the plaintiff, had been
ignorant of the value of the gem at the time of purchasing it. The
other event was the "boom" of the town of Eagle as a diamond center,
which, after the finding of two other diamonds with unmistakable marks
of African origin upon them, ended as suddenly as it had begun, with
the effect of temporarily discrediting, in the minds of geologists, the
genuineness of the original "find."
Ten years later a white diamond of a little less than four carats'
weight came to light in a collection of pebbles found in Oregon,
Wisconsin, and brought to the writer for examination. The stones had
been found by a farmer's lad while playing in a clay bank near his
home. The investigation of the subject which was thereupon made brought
out the fact that a third diamond, and this the larges of all, had
been discovered at Kohlsville, in the same State, in 1883, and was
still in the possession of the family on whose property it had been
found.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account