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COLORED DIAMONDS
different colors appear, for of all gems the diamond has the highest power of light refraction.
The
resultant uproar echoed from West 47th Street to Maiden Lane. Many
jewelers arose to say that it was wrong to imply that the blue of a
blue-white diamond was the result of depth or of reflection. The blue
glow, they said, was due to either atomic or chemical forces inherent
in the white diamond. A small number in the other camp went to the
extreme of saying: If the blue in the blue-white diamond is due to
atomic or chemical forces, then it stands to reason a perfect
blue-white stone is imperfect. Why? Because any chemical condition
that adds a color other than pure white to the stone is a flaw!
In
preparing this chapter the writer therefore decided to present and
interpret what he learned from others on the subject of color. He read
widely on the subject. He found Frank B. Wade, in his Diamonds and
Values, saying that color was believed due to the presence of
relatively small amounts of foreign substances, usually metallic
oxides, but so small they are invisible under the microscope.
The
most illuminating and clear-cut explanation was in Alpheus F. Williams'
Genesis of the Diamond. He is one of the foremost diamond engineers in
the world. This is strictly a technical work and, as its title implies,
does not consider the diamond in general and complete terms but adheres
entirely to its geological and structural phases.
Mr.
Williams explains that the diamond crystallized out of the original
magma before eruption. (Magma is a molten rock material within the
earth, the molten mass from which any igneous rock or lava is formed.)
Other minerals contributed and crystallized, among them graphite,
magnetite, ilmenite, garnet, diopside, chrome-diopside, olivine, and
phlogopite, and there is a strong indication that besides
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