The Picture of India; Geographical, Historical and Descriptive Volume 1 PDF Download

Author: Robert Mudie
Publisher: Rarebooksclub.com
ISBN: 9781230007663
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 86

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Book Description
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1830 edition. Excerpt: ...anything, but they add to it a sort of proof, and as that proof is a practical one, and involves their own interests, it is the more worthy of attention. They return the kuckroo, which they have searched with the greatest care, back into the mine, in order to produce more diamonds; and they add that, after it has lain undisturbed for fifteen or sixteen years, they open it again with precisely the same chance of success, as if they opened a portion that had never before been touched. There is no reason why they should misrepresent the facts, because they can have no inducement to do so; and if they did not find the fresh turning of the same gravel productive, of course they would let it alone. This is a subject upon which it is impossible to come to any conclusion, because we know nothing of the process by which diamond is formed. We know, however, that it is pure carbon, or charcoal; that when burnt, it combines with oxygen, and a portion of pure carbonic acid, exactly equal in weight to the diamond and oxygen consumed, is the result. This being the case, we are quite sure that, if we could take a quantity of pure carbonic acid, and abstract from it all the oxygen that it contains, the remainder would be exactly the same substance as diamond; and as we know of no form under which carbon exists in nature, pure and unmixed with any other substance, but that of diamond, analogy would lead us to suppose that, if we could but abstract the oxygen from pure carbonic acid, 'the result would be diamond itself, in all its hardness and brilliancy. Now the colouring matter that is found in all diamond gravels is an oxide of some sort or other; it containsoxygen, and, therefore, the metal, or metal and alkali united, that enters into this oxyd, ...