Saturday, June 2, 2012

Rough Diamonds, Flashing Trophies, and a Baby-Two


      Diamonds can be had, the easy way, on that field. Approach many of the "professional" looking diggers, when you are alone, and ask if he has any diamonds for sale. He may glance around, confirm nobody is looking, and motion you to his backpack. He may pull out a brilliant display of rough diamonds, each with a certification card. If you have the bucks, you can get a rough diamond easily on the black market.
      It's not always easy to identify some diamonds. Some may be attached to other minerals, and if one does not look at all sides of the sample closely, the visible portion of the diamond may not show up well. The key thing is, look for a metallic luster. And, there are lots of shiny minerals on that field. I have a little display showing one diamond, and ten little gems that are not, but to a novice, may look like a diamond. I have asked lots of tourists to identify the diamond, and few can do it the first time. Though I firmly believe I am by no means an identification expert. I think that may have been one of my problems. After being turned down, time after time, when I took a specimen up to the visitor's center for certification, I got a little hesitant to try. Since I stopped digging, I have seen many certified diamonds that I would have had doubts about, and probably have passed on.
      One of the legendary hunters was telling me a little story. Said he and a tourist were walking onto the field one morning. The tourist, obviously a rich man, asked him if he had a large diamond for sale, at least six carats. He had to tell him no, he didn't have one that size. After they went their separate ways a few steps, he noticed something on the ground, picked it up. After looking it over good, he turned to the tourist, and hollered, "By the way, I do have one about eight carats. Are you interested?" He was. Now, take stories with a grain of salt. Diamond hunters are a lot like fishermen when it comes to stories. One big man, who got really famous on the field for finding so many diamonds one summer, and whose picture is still up in the visitor's center because of it, told me he became so famous with the tourists, that three different women approached him on the field, and begged him into going into the woods with them.  It seems to me, that's just too easy, no matter how famous one is.
      While washing out my gravel one day, one man, a northerner new to the field, hung around, telling me how easy finding diamonds was. "I just walked around, looking, yesterday. I found ten diamonds, right on top of the ground"."Did you get them certified? Lots of things out here look like diamonds."  I said. "No, but I'm sure. I "certified" them myself on the internet." I wanted to tell him, if he would bring any two of them to the visitor's center the next day, get a certification card on them at the Visitor's center, I would kiss his butt in the middle of the field, at high noon, and give him 30 minutes to draw a crowd. But, I only thought about it. He was a big guy.
      I returned home after that first trip, washed all my fine gravel out good, and lay them out in the greenhouse to dry. Corey happened to walk by that drying gravel that afternoon, and said, "What 's this piece of glass doing in here?" Before he could throw it out, I grabbed his hand. A beautiful, yellow, one carat diamond. I had reached my goal, the rest was just gravy.
      I spent many, many nights going through all that gravel, three buckets full. One spoon full at a time, under bright lights. I found one more diamond, a white 7 point. 100 points equals a carat. My obsession didn't hit me really hard again until 30 years later, when I was semi-retired, and I was only a short drive away.
My new equipment was better, Aluminum where I once used wood, and I made an aluminum sled to haul it on. Powered equipment and wheels were forbidden. Things were different, too. Many hundreds of diamonds had been removed from that field in 30 years, and it was very difficult to find virgin soil. I was once digging a very deep hole, way back under a large tree, and the word was getting around that I was probably in new dirt, a very rare thing. Some of the full timers came by to look. I was getting excited, then I started washing out old nails. Ten feet deep under a large tree.
      A new tool had been added. The Seruca. It was a tool straight from the South African diamond mines. Shaped somewhat like a gold pan, but with stainless steel wire. A load of gravel, worked around properly under water, concentrated the heavy minerals, including diamonds, in the middle, on the bottom. Flipped over, this left the heavy minerals on top, right in the middle. Let this dry, and look that area over carefully, and there was no need to take all the gravel home to inspect. Or, just take that small handful in the middle, which I always did.     Continued     Thanks for reading!

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