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An X-ray study of diamonds artificially prepared by J. B. Hannay in 18801 (With Plate X.)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2018

F. A. Bannister  and
K. Lonsdale
F. A. Bannister
Affiliation:
Deputy Keeper, Mineral Department, British Museum
K. Lonsdale
Affiliation:
Royal Institution, London
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Extract

During the course of a general investigation by one of us (K. L.) of diamonds from various sources, using X-ray analytical methods, the inquiry arose as to whether so-called artificial diamonds had ever been examined in this way. It was found that there was, in the Mineral Department of the British Museum, a glass slide bearing 12 minute specimens, labelled as being diamond, artificially prepared and presented by Mr. J. B. Hannay in 1880, presumably the remainder of those investigated by Prof. N. Story-Maskelyne, and referred to in a letter to the Editor of The Times which appeared in that paper on February 20, 1880, as follows:

Sir,—A few weeks since I had to proclaim the failure of one attempt to produce the diamond in a chemical laboratory. To-day I ask a little space in one of your columns in order to announce the entire success of such an attempt by another Glasgow gentleman.

Type
Research Article
Information
Mineralogical magazine and journal of the Mineralogical Society , Volume 26 , Issue 181 , June 1943 , pp. 315 - 324
Copyright
Copyright © The Mineralogical Society of Great Britain and Ireland 1943

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Footnotes

1

A preliminary note ‘Laboratory synthesis of diamond’ appeared in Nature, London, 1943, vol. 151, pp. 334–335

References

page 315 note 2 Reprinted in Chem. News, 1880, vol. 41, pp. 97–98; Nature, 1880, vol. 22, p. 404; Journ. Soc. Arts, 1880, vol. 28, p. 289.

page 316 note 1 Chem. News, 1879, vol. 40, p. 306.

page 316 note 2 Allen, A. H., On the artificial production of precious stones. Chem. News, 1880, vol. 41, pp. 68–69.Google Scholar

page 316 note 3 Reprinted in Chem. News, 1880, vol. 41, pp. 4–5; Nature, 1880, vol. 21, pp. 103–104; Journ. Soc. Arts, 1880, vol. 28, p. 105.

page 318 note 1 Hannay, J. B. and Hogarth, J., On the solubility of solids in gases. Proc. Roy. Soc., 1879, vol. 29, pp. 324–326; 1880, vol. 30, pp. 178–188.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 318 note 2 Hannay, J. B., On the state of fluids at their critical temperatures. Ibid., 1880, vol. 30, pp. 478–484. On the solubility of solids in gases, II. Ibid., 1880, vol. 30, pp. 484–489. On the limit of the liquid state. Ibid., 1881, vol. 31, pp. 520–522; 1882, vol. 33, pp. 294–321. On the absorption of gases by solids. Ibid., 1881, vol. 32, pp. 407–408. On the states of matter. Ibid., 1881, vol. 32, pp. 408–413.Google Scholar

page 319 note 1 Hannay, J. B., On the artificial formation of the diamond. Proc. Roy. Soc., 1880, vol. 30, pp. 188–189 (preliminary notice); 1880, vol. 30, pp. 450–461. Reprints or summaries of these papers appeared in Chem. News, 1880, vol. 41, pp. 106, 111 ; Nature, 1880, vol. 21, pp. 421- 423, vol. 22, pp. 255–257.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 319 note 2 In Hannay's second paper these quantities are reversed, and have been so quoted subsequently by others, but it is clear from the context that only a relatively small percentage of bone-oil was actually used and that Hannay intended to give the figures as we have given them above.

page 320 note 1 Compare Hudleston, W. H., Min. Mag., 1883, vol. 5, p. 209.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 320 note 2 Parsons, C. A., Experiments on the artificial production of diamond. Phil. Trans. Roy. soc., Ser. A, 1919, vol. 220, pp. 67–107. [M.A. 1–232.]CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 321 note 1 Quoted in an article on 'The problem of artificial production of diamonds'. Nature, 1928, vol. 121, pp. 799–800, signed C. H. D[esch]. [M.A. 4–68.]

page 321 note 2 In the biography of Sir Charles Parsons by Rollo Appleyard ('Charles Parsons', Constable & Co. Ltd., London, 1933) it is stated: ‘At a meeting of the Royal Microscopical Society on April 23, 1924, he [i.e. Parsons] said he had for twenty years been trying to make diamonds, and had spent on his experiments £20,000 yet he had come to the conclusion that nobody had ever made a diamond’.

page 322 note 1 Lonsdale, K., Proc. Roy. Soc., Ser. A, 1942, vol. 179, p. 315. [M.A. 8–284.]CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 322 note 2 Robertson, R., Fox, J. J., and Martin, A. E., Two types of diamond. Phil. Trans. Roy. Soc., Ser. A, 1934, vol. 232, pp. 463–535. [M.A. 6–6.] Further work on two types of diamond. Proc. Roy. Soc., Ser. A, 1936, vol. 157, pp. 579–593. [M.A. 6–494.]Google Scholar

page 322 note 3 Lonsdale, K., loc. cit.; Proc. Physical Soc., 1942, vol. 54, p. 314.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 323 note 1 The existence of extinction is the result of what the X-ray crystallographer calls crystal ‘perfection’. By this is meant a uniformity of internal structure, without the slight changes of orientation or position that exist between the component crystallites of a ‘mosaic’ crystal. A diamond may be ‘perfect’, in this sense, and yet show optical anisotropy, because of the existence of a uniform internal strain; or it may be ‘mosaic’, and yet optically isotropic because the individual crystallites are unstrained.

page 323 note 2 Compare Friedel, G., Bull. Soc. Franç. Min., 1924, vol. 47, p. 60 [M.A. 4–292]; Robertson, Fox, and Martin, loc. cit.; C. V. Raman, Current Sci., Bangalore, 1943, vol. 12, p. 41.Google Scholar

page 323 note 3 Raman, C. V., Current Sci., Bangalore, 1942, vol. 11, p. 261.Google Scholar

page 323 note 4 Chesley, F. G., Amer. Min., 1942, vol. 27, p. 20. [M.A. 8–268.]Google Scholar