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
The evidence from the Oregon, Eagle, and Kohlsville stones, which
were located on the moraine of the Green Bay glacier, is that their
home, in case they had a common one, is between the northeastern
corner of the State of Wisconsin and the eastern summit of the ice
mantle--a narrow strip of country of great extent, but yet a first
approximation of the greatest value. If we assume, further, that the
Saukville, Burlington, and Dowagiac stones, which were found on the
moraine of the Lake Michigan glacier, have the same derivation, their
common home may confidently be placed as far to the northeast as
the wilderness beyond the Great Lakes, since the Green Bay and Lake
Michigan glaciers coalesced in that region. The small stones found at
Plum Creek, Wisconsin, and the Cincinnati stone, if the locations of
their discovery be taken into consideration, still further circumscribe
the diamond's home territory, since the lobes of the ice mass which
transported them made a complete junction with the Green Bay and Lake
Michigan lobes or glaciers considerably farther to the northward than
the point of union of the latter glaciers themselves.
[Illustration: THREE VIEWS OF A LEAD CAST OF THE MILFORD STONE (six
carats); enlarged about three diameters.
We are indebted to the courtesy of Prof. T. H. Norton, of the
University of Cincinnati, for the above illustrations.]
If, therefore, it is assumed that all the stones which have been found
have a common origin, the conclusion is inevitable that the ancestral
home must be in the wilderness of Canada between the points where the
several tracks marking their migrations converge upon one another, and
the former summit of the ice sheet. The broader the "fan" of their
distribution, the nearer to the latter must the point be located.
It is by no means improbable that when the barren territory about
Hudson Bay is thoroughly explored a region for profitable diamond
mining may be revealed, but in the meantime we may be sure that
individual stones will occasionally be found in the new American homes
into which they were imported long before the days of tariffs and ports
of entry. Mother Nature, not content with lavishing upon our favored
nation the boundless treasures locked up in her mountains, has robbed
the territory of our Canadian cousins of the rich soils which she has
unloaded upon our lake States, and of the diamonds with which she has
sowed them.
[Illustration: COMMON FORMS OF QUARTZ CRYSTALS.]
[Illustration: COMMON FORMS OF DIAMONDS. The African stones most
resemble the figure above at the left (octahedron). The Wisconsin
stones most resemble the figure above at the right (dodecahedron).]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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