Page:The Overland Monthly, volume 1, issue 1.djvu/40

 dicious remarks, though she did sometimes open her eyes with wonder when she saw her husband rush out to answer a sudden call, carrying a boiling retort or half-finished experiment in his hand. Believing her husband to be one of the wisest and best of men, she declared that the God of Nature would bring him out of all his maze of conjectures in triumph; but what those conjectures were, and why he should have them, she did not know. I do not believe that she cared to know.

Carbon was always a favorite subject of Dr. Barnard's studies, and he pursued the subtle element through all its tortuous changes and _ multifarious forms. Nobody but a scientific man could understand the variety of his experiments and the wonderful results at which he arrived, in his thirsty chase for all that could be known concerning his favorite subject. "Carbon," he would say, "pervades all nature in one form or another. It gives strength and solidity to the humble plant beneath our feet; it is in the air we breathe and in the food we eat; it gives life and vigor to the blood of man and beast; warms us in the dull coal of the grate, and sparkles in the liquid lustre of the rarest gem in the world." The idea that carbon is capable of being solidified into its purest form, the diamond, was always uppermost in his mind; and pondering on the fact that here was crystalized carbon—only simple carbon in its purest form—he continually asked himself, "Why cannot this familiar element be caught, prisoned, and solidified into the precious gem?" "Nature," he argued, "has but few secrets in her laboratory which are not penetrable to man; her processes are hidden, but may be discovered or imitated; and if we know that Nature makes a diamond by crystalizing carbon, why not follow in her footsteps?" This was easier said than done, but the indefatigable experimenter was on the'keen search for the

hidden secret. Diamonds were not plenty or cheap in those days, and I shudder even now to think of the valuable stones that were bought by Barnard, pulverized, sublimated, triturated and treated to all sorts of tests with acids, fire, and other agencies. Before the long quest was ended, poor Mrs. Barnard's few gems went into the alembic, or melted away, none knew how. Dr. Barnard despised as absurd and chimerical the old notion of the alchemists, that gold could be made by transmutation, and cheerily he laughed at the vain dream that had tempted so many to poverty, desperation, and death. His was not a vulgar and ignorant fancy that gold, a primitive element, could be made by man; but humbly following in Nature's footsteps, he would imitate her own formula, and combine in the flawless gem the simple elements which she had revealed were the constituent parts thereof. This thought having once obtained lodgment in his mind, never left him. He had always known the theory of the chemists in relation to the formation of the diamond, but not until he had been emboldened by brilliant successes in experimental chemistry, did it occur to him that he might possibly accomplish that which had before been only dimly hinted at as a possibility. It had been said that whoever discovered the process of crystalizing carbon would have found the art of making diamonds. This was to be his work, and thenceforward he turned his attention to a pursuit of the phantom with all the ardor of one who is master of the obedient materials at hand. He was familiar enough with the disguises and peculiarities of the element which he pursued to be able to know just where to begin and where to lay his hand upon its secret habitations. His trials and manipulations were, of course, conducted on a small scale, and they were just successful enough to lure him forward to greater ventures and closer ap