Auckland Diamond Discovery.

Thames Star, Volume XIV, Issue 4385, 23 January 1883, Page 2

Auckland Diamond Discovery.

[by teiegbaph.—own cobrespondent.]

Auckland, Festerday

A few weeks ago a report was telegraphed from thd South that a man named Jacobson had found diamonds in, Canterbury. The report stated that some of the stones were soft. This cannot be the case with any true diamond, however inferior it may be. Courtney, a returned successful South African diamond miner now residing in Auckland, offered to test Jacobson's stones, and, if they were true diamonds, to advance the necessary money to work the mine and purchase ground if necessary. There is a probability that he will have the opportunity of doing a similar act for an Auckland settler nrmed Archibald Douglas, as he picked up a few stones on the road over which he has had occasion to travel frequently of late. Tne stones he has found are all diamond shaped, aud comparatively small. The first thin^ which attracted his attention to the crystal looking specks on the rood he was travelling was that one morning after a heavy rain he found one of them lying on a blade of grass, but the blade of grass did not appear to be weighed down by it. He stoopc d and picked it up, and upon examination he found it to be diamond shaped. A further search in the neighborhood put him in possession of a number of stones. On reaching home he examined them more carefully, and found that they were lighter than water; he tried broken glass and small pieces of quartz, but in every case these immediately sank to the bottom when placed in water. On the nest and subsequent oc easions that he passed the same place he always picked up a number of stones of a like character; all were diamond shaped, and possessed light specific gravity. He subsequently obtained sulphuric acid, and immersed the stones in it for twelve hours,-when he found that instead of being destroyed they became much brighter in appearance, and patches of discoloration appeared on some of the stones by its action. The locality of the discovery is at present kept a secret.