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INDUSTRIAL DIAMONDS: IN WAR AND PEACE
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$10,885,664,
were delivered to United States manufacturers and industrial diamond
dealers during the year to provide an adequate supply for defense
production. Some 3,498,655 carats, or approximately 90 per cent of the
tough little stones, came from Africa. The remainder were imported from
Brazil, British Guiana, and other South American countries. It was
indicated in 1941 that large-scale deliveries would continue to
American purchasers on regular schedule during the latter months of
1941 and the full year of 1942. Parenthetically, the 1940 record
imports represent an increase of more than 150 per cent over the prewar
years of 1936, 1937, 1938, when average annual imports were about
1,500,000 carats.
Consumption
is rapidly increasing, says Sydney Ball, because of America's big
defense program. As we produce no diamonds, industrials remain one of
the critical minerals, a further stock of which must be built up by the
United States. To show you the increase in demand: in 1935 we used
954,589 carats of industrials with a total value of $4,293,611; in
1940, we used 3,809,071 carats with a total value of $11,026,563.
So,
having looked at figures, we must now become just sufficiently
technical to find out what these stones really are. It is safe to
divide them into (1) boart (also called bortz and bort), (2) carbons
(also called carbonadoes), (3) ballas, to which might be added stones
of cube formation, usually found in the Wesselton mine of South
Africa, and of great durability because they are cross-grained instead
of having the grain running evenly as in the case of most diamonds, (4)
gray or brown crystals, found in all mines but the most valuable from
the Jagersfontein and Premier mines of South Africa, and (5) melee, weighing less than a quarter of a carat and used chiefly in glass cutting.
(245)
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