MAKING PRECIOUSJEWELS.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XXXVI, Issue 10066, 6 February 1909, Page 2 (Supplement)

MAKING PRECIOUSJEWELS.

(Ity riui'cssm iSarivti I>. Korviss.) «

Th" turn- .Mollis li> be at hand when , the poorest, man mav look forward, it Ik- i Ihi.iKs it worth while, .to seeing his win- , doiurated with gems which at present , pri-es would eesi a large, fortune. 1 bey , will he gems of the most precious vaji,-., ties, and perfectly genuine, except, thai . •Juv will no the products of the chemist « , hand,' instead ot those of nature, I his , expectation is principally based upon the recent achievements ot a young trench chemist. Louis l'aris. who has made a sennation bv his discovery of a method ol making sappuircs. which neither in a|>pearan, e nur in c'onipositr.in can he distinguished from the name gems nuule by nature. lint it is not oiiiy sapphires that <an 1., produced by arliluial process. L'rogre-s : also being made in the manufacture o, monds. and soon, it is. probable. .1 emeralds, Oriental amethysts. :'.v.-.dial) l.opa/.cs, and other master]-; .... ..1 natures jewellery will be tunic, out iron, the iauoratories of niudern science. .Nature has guarded well the secrets 01 her gems. For a thousand years, hrM. the alchemists ami then llieir .Mirre.-sni-s the chemists, have tried in vain to pen-, rale those secrets. 11l the .Middle Ages 1 h.u.ias Aquinas declared that an atclicunst had succeeded in making sapphires, hut 11 thus was so the secret died with its di.-< merer, ai.d it has remained tor tne twentieth e. n lnrv ui. rediscover it. 'lhe discovery ol Monsieur l'aris is so interesting and opens up such immense possibilities that c\er.\bodv will want to hear how he docs .1. The ]irocess seems astonishingly simple. [Sapphire is crystallised aluminium. Every spadelul of clay contains a baud tul of sapphires, hut invisible and undeveloped, because the magic tomb required to make, them appear is very rarely implied by nature. Monsieur Tans way of causing them to spring forth is to lake powdered aluminium mixed with a lit lboxide of cobalt, which gives a blue, volor. and to put it in a furnace, where it is heated to a temperature of 2092 degrees Fahrenheit. The substance undergoes a chemical change which prepares it lor the next step. The powder is now placed 111 little vases having funnels at the bottom, and these vases ate put over oxyhydrogen blowpipes and are agitated 111 Mich 11 way that the >nvder falls upon the glowing points of the blowpipes. In the niteii,,heal—2o92 degrees Fahrenheit— to which it is subject the powder undergoes a marvellous change. A veritable sclent 1:1.' miracle takes place. Where the pouocr falls upon the llame a molten drop tonus, transparent and of an exquisite -blue. 'I his drop is pure sapphire. When it cools it is transformed into a gem of the lir»t

water. These sapphires are as pure and as hard as those produced liy nature. 'I heir composition is the same, their color is equally lirilliant. .'l'liev eim lie cut an.l facetted liv the jeweller to suit h,s limey c-r that ol' the wearer. In short, the alchemist's dream is realised. If natures way of doing lia.s not been precisely found, man has discovered anuLlier just as good, ami he works with the same materials. All of nature's gems are mil equally perfect, and the same is true of thase produced in the laboratory. But they all possess the wonderful hardness ol' liio papphire, and a practical use has already been found for those thai are not suilaole lor jewellery. In J'aris just now they are driving a tunnel under the Seine ior a railroad, and the hardness of the mativlal penetrated wears out the diamond dr.ii.i with costly rapidity, 'the jewelled p..nils of the drill cost SUOdels. apiece. 'I he sapphires made by .Monsieur I'aris' pro.es cost only four or live dollars per carai. •and no doubl he makes a big profit ai lliat. But these sapphires are mi haul that they can be substituted for the diamond points of the drills. Thus suggests 'that the discovery of ways to make precious stones of their distinction ,-mil peculiar value ami turning them into mere accessories <ii' the machine, shop. 'I hen I he ladies will have to look out lor some other form ol ornaments, ami science will have to furnish thcni, because nature., resources in that line have been exhausted. All the natural gems were discovered long ago. What has jusl been described is, however, onlv the beginning of the story. We come now to diamonds ami other gems more precious than the line sapphires. These, too, can be produced arlilieially. although, at present, not quite so s.n,-eci-.s-fully as Monsieur I'aris' sapphire. Diamonds are very different ill composition from sapphires, rallies, and emeralds. 'I he diamond is crystallised carbon. Kver,\ coal mine might have been, a diamond mine if nature, bad chosen to apply to tinraw material at her command tin- same processes that she so sparingly used in Mouth Africa, Brazil, and: a few other favored spots on the earth. The method en-ployed for artificial sapphires will not . do at all tor diamonds. In their piodue tion nature seems to have enlisted some of her most gigantic energies, and a principal reason why man has I litis tar only succeeded in turning out very small diamonds is that lie has not had at his command the tremendous machinery that nature has been able to employ for this purpose. The clue to nature's, secret with regard . to diamonds was found when it was discovered that in South Africa the diamonds , lie. in the cooled throats of ancient volcanoes. The thought Occurred to the late Professor Moieson, the French chemist, and. to a few others, thai the chief agen- . uies employed by nature in producing diamonds had been tremendous heal combined with tremendous pressure. , These agencies, it was manifest, nutstexist in perfection in a volcano, (.liven, then, the presence in the volcano of carbon, Moissan thought that diamonds might . he the result. He tried . to reproduce, on a small scale, the conditions prevailing in a volcano, with the aid of tin electric furnace. To imitate the pressure he ; called upon iron to assist him. Molten I iron has the property of expanding a little , as it cools. This expansion exerts a forcethat is almost irresistible. Moissan mingled carbon with the molten iron in his : electric furnace, and, alter Itaviyg subjected the mass to tremendous heat, he caused it to cool very rapidly by plunging it . into cold water. The quick expansion of the iron -brought an immense pressure strain upon the interior of the mass, where ' the carbon was imprisoned, and when the carbon was. broken open bright little crystals appeared which examination proved were actual diamonds. They possessed all the qualities of the natural gems, only they were distressingly small. But Moissan had not anticipated making big diamonds, so that he was more than satisfied with the result of the experiment. lie had at last found out the secret, or a part of it, and had put science in the way to discover ib all, Since these crucial experiments of 'the French chemist all sorts of efforts have been made to improve on his mocess, but nobody has yet succeeded in turning out diamonds large enough to be used in jewellery. But no doubt some day it will be done. The owners of some of the South African diamond fields had some had quarters of an hour when the astonishing news of Moissan's success was at first announced. There is another very strange hint that nature has given ns—a sort of challenge —concerning diamonds. Once in a .while there drops out of the sky a. meteor composed of iron filled with.minute- black diamonds. This is very much as if nature sometimes uses the same process as that invented by Moissan, only using it out in the sky among strange worlds, and in corners of Creation about which we knownothing, and scattering the results upon us as a stimulus to curiosity. Rubies, emeralds, amethysts, and topazes can also bo produced artificially. They are all close .relatives, being every one a crystal whose base .is aluminium. The new process of making sapphires ought, therefore, with proper, modifications, to serve for these other gems as well. Jt will be surprising if great efforts .are not now made ■ in this direction. To turn, out a large and perfect, ruby would oe a very profitable achievement —and one that ' nature herself. has,, hardly effected —for, contrary to common belief, rubies are far more valuable than diamonds when of,great size. , A fine ruby, weighing four or five carats is, according to Mr George F. Kunz, worth in the market from five to ten times as much, as a diamond of equal size. But, up )to .the present the onlv artificial .rubies of any consequence that have been produced are simply imitation gems, and not the real thing like Monsieur Paris' sapphires. Yet these, imi-

tal ii .ti si oik'.-; hit. ofloa i. i(. 11.1, ~ ,|, v . eveiylioily exiupl. mi expert. '"S^H Kiihj.Tt. Imitation .jeins ,an n.mt'^'^B ut'^\i i; irMi''iHi l ii!i.'Liiio ..'f aH^n'^mr'^H now reported Horn li'ran. e nll _■ I,t i„'il'^l ell<l lipsi't till! tllillU. t for Hl.'ll if the grv.il market is tin.. .liamuml n^l i.MI lie pioilueeil. Imitation piveiuus t-tonc,, an. ~ttou thev' iii'i'' inside, is worth '•'hli,.'"" 1 !)°*H basis of .-ill tllell._ i,- , ~|. ,i„l ~!{»■ kail!" To make .■in arlili.i.il^hain.^l'j^M mail.', l>y addine wine ..,l,ali {"''njH ynatite." This ..ivw it ii l.li ..l„r' a JjB tin., re.siiltiiu; "t510iii.",'.1....s ii.il '"pJ^H less clc>«ely imitated. ' '"°' l' ''■ of f'.l'e' Kon'i's pnt« a' lit'll.. <>.\'i'l!'"„rsH "paste." O.xido "if ■■<i|»|i.'i'. loni'lli,.,' ltii ;H oxide of ('lii'oiiiiiiin. wei-yeti to lam <r:i| ~■ attention. Tliei'e unlet lie' in the "iiajJH le.taiii proportion;; of |Hild, tin. ami'«, ■ nionv. The Mime material*, will, a iv,| ■ lion „f the quantity of m„|,| ,„.| ~ «■ what. iliU'erent treat inenl, ,„. m . f,,,. .■ iniitation topaz.