“Is there any other place on the surface of this earth, or is there any mine,” inquired a shrill voice from the company, “where one could get a diamond like that?”
“There is no such place known to mortal man,” replied the jeweler.
“Then,” said the same shrill voice, which belonged to a professor from Harvard, “I think it is the duty of every one present, whose mind is capable of it, to believe that the centre of this earth, or a part of that centre, is a vast diamond; at the same time I would say that my mind is not capable of such a belief.”
The public excitement produced by the announcement of the discovery of the pole was a trifle compared to that resulting from the news of the proceedings of that day. Clewe's address, with full accounts by the reporters, was printed everywhere, and it was not long before the learned world had given itself up to the discussion.
From this controversy Roland Clewe kept himself aloof. He had done all that he wanted to do, he had shown all that he cared to show; now he would let other people investigate his facts and his reasonings and argue about them; he would retire—he had done enough.
Professor Tippengray was one of the most enthusiastic defenders of Clewe's theories, and wrote a great deal on the subject.
“Granted,” she said, in one of her articles, “that the carboniferous minerals, of which the diamond is one, are derived from vegetable matter, and that wood and plants must have existed before the diamond, where, may I ask, did the prediamond-forests derive their carbon? In what form did it exist before they came into being?”
In another essay she said:
“Half a century ago it was discovered that a man could talk through a thousand miles of wire, and yet now we doubt that a man can descend through fourteen miles of rock.”
As to the Artesian ray itself, there could be no doubt whatever, for when Clewe, in one of his experiments, directed it horizontally through a small mountain and objects could be plainly discerned upon the other side, discussions in regard to the genuineness of the action of the photic borer were useless.