The other and more difficult metamorphosis of carbon, the transformation
of charcoal into diamond, was successfully accomplished by Moissan in
1894. Henri Moissan was a toxicologist, that is to say, a Professor of
Poisoning, in the Paris School of Pharmacy, who took to experimenting
with the electric furnace in his leisure hours and did more to
demonstrate its possibilities than any other man. With it he isolated
fluorine, most active of the elements, and he prepared for the first
time in their purity many of the rare metals that have since found
industrial employment. He also made the carbides of the various metals,
including the now common calcium carbide. Among the problems that he
undertook and solved was the manufacture of artificial diamonds. He
first made pure charcoal by burning sugar. This was packed with iron in
the hollow of a block of lime into which extended from opposite sides
the carbon rods connected to the dynamo. When the iron had melted and
dissolved all the carbon it could, Moissan dumped it into water or
better into melted lead or into a hole in a copper block, for this
cooled it most rapidly.
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