months ago the writer picked out about a dozen fair but small diamonds for a “fossicker” from a little bag of different stones that he had found in Spring Creek, Beechworth, Victoria. It is recorded that diamonds were first brought to Europe from the first known of the mines of Golconda, the mine of Sumbulpour, in 1584. The mines of Brazil were discovered in 1728. Boetius de Boodt asserted in the year 1609, his belief in the inflammability of the diamond, and in 1694 the Florentine academicians demonstrated the truth of Boetius’ belief and Newton’s deductions—Sir Isaac Newton having based his similar conclusions on the refracting power of the diamond in 1675. Boyle discovered in 1673 that when the diamond was submitted to high temperature it ejected a pungent vapour in which a part of it was consumed. In 1695 Averani experimenting with the concentrated rays of the sun on the diamond demonstrated that “it was exhaled in vapour and entirely disappeared while other precious stones only grew softer.” That the diamond can be burned is easy of proof, as is also the fact that acids have no effect upon it. The gnomes figure in the elemental system of Rosicrucian philosophy, being described as small people who guard the mines and treasures of the earth, the precious stones and the metals. They are robust little fellows of a brown colour, and their sympathy extends to philosophic minds amongst both miners and scholars. They hate frivolity, for they are serious little fairies. Comte de Gabalis details an argument with their Prince who came to the upper earth in respect to the will of the Irish sage Macnamara. Macnamara has sympathy for the gnomes whom he calls “the unhappy guardians of treasures,” in the mystical chapters on “The Irreconcilable.” There are numerous legends of the Gnomes, the meanings of which are not difficult to interpret if the mind of the student is filled with the desire to know. It is said that these little fairies suffer much, and that when they grieve for those they have loved and lost their tears change into diamonds, which remain as the jewel emblems of pure and unselfish grief. That great old English traveller of the 14th Century, Sir John Mandeville—a copy of whose MS., said to date from the time of the author, is in the Cottonian Library—wrote that the diamond should always be worn on the left or heart side of the body, and that it is possible for a diamond to lose its occult virtue after being handled by evil people: for in the human body there is more potency for good or ill than is generally understood. There are many stories of misfortune and discord following the possessors of stolen diamonds. Ample evidence exists that substances handled by diseased persons are quite capable of conveying their symptoms to others. The Diamond, ever a symbol of purity, was regarded as a charm against all evil, but—said the philosophers—it must not be touched by evil, by lemures, incubi, succubi