○  russell conwell : acres of diamonds  ○

our high school scholars and our grammar-school scholars, that i could have them to talk to. while i would have preferred such an audience as that, because they are most susceptible, as they have not gotten into any custom that they cannot break, they have not met with any failures as we have; and while i could perhaps do such an audience as that more good than i can do grown-up people, yet i will do the best i can with the material i have. i say to you that you have “acres of diamonds” in philadelphia right where you now live. “oh,” but you will say, “you cannot know much about your city if you think there are any ‘acres of diamonds’ here.”

i was greatly interested in that account in the newspaper of the young man who found that diamond in north carolina. it was one of the purest diamonds that has ever been discovered, and it has several predecessors near the same locality. i went to a distinguished professor in mineralogy and asked him where he thought those diamonds came from. the professor secured the map of the geologic formations of our continent, and traced it. he said it went either through the underlying carboniferous strata adapted for such production, westward through ohio and the mississippi, or in more probability came eastward through virginia and up the shore of the atlantic ocean. it is a fact that the diamonds were there, for they have been discovered and sold; and that they were carried down there during the drift period, from some northern locality. now who can say but some person going down with his drill in philadelphia will find some trace of a diamond-mine yet down here? oh, friends! you cannot say that you are not over one of the greatest diamond-mines in the world, for such a diamond as that only comes from the most profitable mines that are found on earth.

but it serves to simply to illustrate my thought, which i emphasize by saying if you do not have the actual diamond-mines literally you have all that they would be good for to

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