Diamonds Are Forever

by Read Listen Learn

Diamonds are forever.

Diamonds are both very beautiful and very expensive. When a man asks a woman to marry him, it is usual for him to buy a diamond ring and give it to her. It often costs him a lot of money. But diamonds are as romantic as roses and it is difficult these days to think of an engagement party with no diamond ring on a girl’s finger. But did you know that this was not always true?

It was in the nineteenth century that diamonds became very popular. Before then, it was very difficult to get them out of the ground and more difficult to cut them so that they looked beautiful. Again, in the middle of the twentieth century, the South African company, De Beers, made diamonds popular in countries where nobody thought about them before. The words ‘Diamonds are Forever’ are not only the name of a James Bond film but are the slogan of De Beers company.

The word ‘diamond’ comes from the old Greek word ‘adamas’, which means ‘unbreakable’. A diamond is made of carbon atoms and is one of the hardest things in the world. It also lets heat move through it very fast. So, industry uses diamonds to cut very hard things. The biggest diamond mine in the world – in Australia – has 80% brown diamonds and sells most to industry because people prefer colourless, blue, pink or yellow diamonds on their fingers.

Diamonds come from near the centre of the planet, about 150 kilometres inside the Earth. They are between one billion and 3.3 billion years old. They come near the top in volcanoes. The reason that they are different colours is that one part in a million is not carbon, but maybe boron. This makes blue diamonds. Nitrogen atoms make diamonds yellow. There are other colours too: red, pink and green.

People first started to get diamonds from the ground in India, probably about 6,000 years ago. Some of the most famous diamonds come from India: the Sancy Diamond in the French crown and the Koh-i-Noor in the British one are both from there. They are priceless and France and Britain will never sell them. They are more than diamonds – they are part of history. The most expensive diamond is the Cullinan and is 109 grams. It costs $400 million.

These days, some countries are worried that diamonds from central and west Africa – maybe 3% of the world’s diamonds – come to us from war zones and cost not only money but people’s lives. They are called ‘blood diamonds’ and Canada, for example, does not buy or sell them.

But diamonds will stay popular with people as long as there is love. And as long as there are rich people to buy them.