Science: U. S. Diamonds

Travelers going south from Indianapolis along the Dixie highway noticed last week, as others did all summer and autumn, uncouth men clamber out of the wooded gullies and ravines of Morgan County. The men had in common an intent, secretive, yet futile look on their faces. They were diamond hunters. Every day they waded Indiana’s creeks and panned the gravel left there long ago by glaciers. Frequently they found grains of gold; rarely, yet often enough to stir hope, they found a small diamond. Because similar diamonds have been found in Ohio, Michigan and Wisconsin, in the terminal moraines of old glaciers, geologists figure that they were scuffed out of a parent field somewhere south or southwest of James Bay, the teat-like extension of Hudson Bay. That field has not yet been located.