Diamonds In Industry

Diamonds are valuable for many purposes. Their powder is best for the lapidary. They are also used for jewels in watches, as lenses for microscopes, and in the cutting of window and plate glass. When used as a glazier's tool the diamond must be uncut. Inferior kinds of diamonds are also extensively used by engineers in rock boring and by copperplate engravers as etching points. Diamonds are obtained from alluvial deposits, such as sands and clays, from which they are separated by washing. They are found in India, Borneo and other parts of the East, and in some localities in North America and Australia; but the chief diamond fields of to-day are Brazil and Cape Colony, the center of the latter being Kimberly, in Griqualand West, where diamonds were discovered in 1867. These mines now yield more than nine-thenths of all the diamonds produced in the world.