THE AUSTRALIAN DIAMOND INDUSTRY.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume V, Issue 1381, 27 October 1886, Page 2

THE AUSTRALIAN DIAMOND INDUSTRY.

Bingerr, the seat of the New South Wales diamond-miolng Industry, is a post town in the county of Murchison, within easy reach of Tamworth and Glen Innes. Diamonds have from time to time been obtained from that locality, bat, as systematic mining was never taken in ha- d, the partial yields were for a long tim > passed over with scarce a thought of the immense importance of the industry. Strange to say, the experience of the two other great diamondlferous countries of the world has been similar. lu Brazil the stones were f ir a long time considered as almost worthless, whilst at the Cape they ware discovered long before their true value was known. Up to eighteen months ago the Bingt-ra mines were in the same position, for it was generally believed throughout colonial mining circles that the Aust alian diamond was not equal to the Cape or Brazilian o e. Recent experiments have completely overthrown the hypothesis of thn small value of the Australian diamond, for Cape stones of a sim'lar size have only a current value of from 14s lo 15a per carat. The extreme hardness, which was one of the principsl objections against the Australian diamond, at adding to the cost of cutting, has been found actually to increase its value, u when cat it shows a brilliancy and life that makes it far superior to the softer and leas lustrous stone of the Cape fields. Coster, the great diamond cutter of Amsterdam, and the greatest authority In the world on the subject, to whom the cutting of the Koh-i-noor was encrusted, is said to have pronounced most favorably as to the quality of the Bingera stones, and to have considered them finer and better than those from the Cape.