A New Formation of Diamond
I have long speculated as to the possibility of obtaining artificially such pressures and temperatures as would fulfil the above conditions. In their researches on the gases from fired gunpowder and cordite, Sir Frederick Abel and Sir Andrew Noble obtained in closed steel cylinders pressures as great as 95 tons to the square inch, and temperatures as high as 4000° C. According to a paper recently communicated to the Royal Society, Sir Andrew Noble, exploding cordite in closed vessels, has obtained a pressure of 8000 atmospheres, or 50 tons per square inch, with a temperature reaching in all probability 5400° Ab.
Here, then, we have conditions favourable for the liquefaction of carbon, and were the time of explosion sufficient to allow the reactions to take place, we should certainly expect to get the liquid carbon to solidify in the crystalline state.[7]
By the kindness of Sir Andrew Noble I have been enabled to work upon some of the residues obtained in closed vessels after explosions, and I have submitted them to the same treatment that the granulated iron had gone through. After weeks of patient toil I removed the amorphous carbon, the graphite, the silica,[8] and other constituents of the ash of cordite, and obtained a residue among which, under the microscope, crystalline particles could be distinguished. Some of these particles, from their crystalline appearance and double refraction, were silicon carbide; others were probably diamonds. The whole residue was dried and fused at a good red heat in an excess of potassium bifluoride, to which was added, during fusion, 5 per cent of nitre. (Previous experiments had shown me that this mixture readily attacked and dissolved silicon carbide; unfortunately it also attacks diamond to a slight degree.) All the operations of washing and acid treatment were performed in a large platinum crucible by decantation (except the preliminary attack with nitric acid and potassium chlorate, when a hard glass vessel was used); the final result was washed into a shallow watch-glass and the selection made under the microscope. The residue, after thorough washing and then heating in fuming sulphuric acid, was washed, and the largest crystalline particles picked out and mounted.
From the treatment the residual crystals had undergone, chemists will agree with me that diamonds only could stand such an ordeal; on submitting them to skilled crystallographic authorities my opinion is confirmed. Speaking of the largest crystal, one eminent authority calls it “a diamond showing octahedral planes with dark boundaries due to high refracting index.” After careful examination, another authority writes of the same crystal diamond, “I think one may safely say that the position and angles of its faces, and of its cleavages, the absence of birefringence, and the high refractive index are all compatible with the properties of the diamond crystallising in the form of an octahedron. Others of the remaining crystals, which show a similar high refractive index, appeared to me to present the same features.”
It would have been more conclusive had I been able to get further evidence as to the density and hardness of the crystals; but from what I have already said I think there is no doubt that in these closed vessel explosions we have another method of producing the diamond artificially.
[CHAPTER X]
THE NATURAL FORMATION OF THE DIAMOND
An hypothesis is of little value if it only elucidates half a problem. Let us see how far we can follow out the ferric hypothesis to explain the volcanic pipes. In the first place we must remember these so-called volcanic vents are admittedly not filled with the eruptive rocks, scoriaceous fragments, etc., constituting the ordinary contents of volcanic ducts.