L. No; but of infinite interest. We might even come to know something about the making of diamonds.
Sibyl. I thought the chemists could make them already?
L. In very small black crystals, yes; but no one knows how they are formed where they are found; or if indeed they are formed there at all. These, in my hand, look as if they had been swept down with the gravel and gold; only we can trace the gravel and gold to their native rocks, but not the diamonds. Read the account given of the diamond in any good work on mineralogy;—you will find nothing but lists of localities of gravel, or conglomerate rock (which is only an old indurated gravel). Some say it was once a vegetable gum; but it may have been charred wood; but what one would like to know is, mainly, why charcoal should make itself into diamonds in India, and only into black lead in Borrowdale.
Sibyl. Are they wholly the same, then?
L. There is a little iron mixed with our black lead but nothing to hinder its crystallisation. Your pencils in fact are all pointed with formless diamond, though they would be HHH pencils to purpose, if it crystallised.
Subyl. But what is crystallisation?
L. A pleasant question, when one's half asleep, and it has been tea time these two hours. What thoughtless things girls are!
Sibyl. Yes, we are; but we want to know, for all that.
L. My dear, it would take a week to tell you.
Sibyl. Well, take it, and tell us.