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Discovery Of Diamonds And Gold Diamonds

Decent Essays

Discovery of Diamonds

Most all of the world has had a love affair with diamonds. They are sparkling, mesmerizingly beautiful and considered rare gems. Yet, if you knew the history and the blood that is shed over the 133 million carats of diamonds mined each year, you would probably never buy a diamond again. Diamonds have been considered valuable since they were found. To understand the diamond industry we must first look at when they were discovered and where they are mined. Although, the first diamonds discovered were not mined but found in alluvial deposits along the banks of Orange River in India around 4000 BC. It’s interesting to think that in both India and Africa the first diamonds were found above ground and not through any …show more content…

These children will rape, kill, torture anybody on command because they have been abused and brainwashed to believe they are fighting a war for their country’s benefit. Infamous within this history is the Small Boys Unit in Sierra Leone. I read about horrendous accounts of torture and even eating the flesh and organs of their victims. The diamonds of this area of Sierra Leone were coined “blood diamonds” because of this. This is not the only country in Africa to use the money from diamond sales this way. Angola also funded a war with over 3 billion worth of revenue from the diamond industry. Behind all of this corruption in Africa one main diamond producer, the De Beer Family. It was an Englishman, Cecil John Rhodes, that formed De Beers Consolidated Mines in Africa in 1866. He managed to keep prices high by controlling the mining operations of the largest mine in Africa. Even with all his efforts, as more diamond mines were discovered, the prices of diamonds dropped a bit in the early 1900s. In order to counteract this, De Beers, was clever to hire an advertising agency to work up a genius way of addressing the price decline by increasing the demand for quality diamonds. In 1947, De Beers managed to corner the market on the engagement ring and fine jewelry industry by coining the term “A diamond is forever” and then many other successful slogans like “Diamonds are a girl’s best friend.” now almost 80% of engagement rings are presented with a

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