Diamond discoveries nothing new

With extensive exploration under way for diamond occurences throughout Canada, including encouraging results in northern Ontario and Quebec, you can imagine my surprise when I was recently reading through Shocked and Appalled: A Century of Letters to the Globe and Mail. In a letter dated Aug. 7, 1931, John M. Daly, Indian Superintendency, Parry Sound, Ont., extols the untapped riches of these areas, including the possible existence of diamonds.

Daly writes: “There should be diamonds in northern Ontario and Quebec; the clay where diamonds are found, is to be found in northern Ontario and Quebec, the blue clay that you can cut like cheese, with all kinds of pebbles in it. All it requires is the fellow who knows diamonds in the rough to come up and get them; not the knocker nor the wise guy who knows it all, but the fellow who has vision and faith and a knowledge of how to hunt for diamonds.” Although evidently unaware that kimberlite, rather than clay, holds the promise of diamonds, Daly can be credited with having a vision that’s being actively pursued more than 70 years later.

H.R. Steacy

Ottawa