Andreas Achenbach paintings
Alphonse Maria Mucha paintings
Diamonds are crystals of pure carbon and they form in the Earth's upper mantle, the region of rock that lies just below the outer crust.A young African tribesman was walking near the Orange River in what is now South Africa in 1868 when he discovered a glassy stone that caught his fancy.
The youth, known today only as Swartboy, took the stone to a local man, who was known to like colorful rocks, in hopes of exchanging it for a night's lodging. Schalk van Niekerk, so the story goes, astonished Swartboy when he offered to trade all of his livestock, including 500 sheep, 10 cows and a horse, for the stone.It wasn't the first diamond discovered in southern Africa, but at that point it was the most spectacular, an 83.5-carat gem that Van Niekerk sold for a small fortune, setting off a frantic and ruthless quest for riches.
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