Even if you haven’t heard of J.K Rowling’s Harry Potter series, the philosopher’s stone is legendary. In 1823, a letter from New York states the efforts made to discover the stone and the philosophical instruments designed to bring about the creation of diamonds.
“PHILOSOPHER’S STONE.- A letter from New York, dated June 9, says – “If the long-sought-for philosopher’s stone, by which baser substances could be transmuted into gold, has not yet been found, an invention of still greater importance has at length crowned the efforts of American chymists. It has long been known that the diamond, the most precious of all substances, is composed of carbon in its pure state. But although the powers of chymical analysis have been sufficient by repeated experiments clearly to establish this fact, yet the knowledge of it was of no practical importance to the world, because the powers of synthesis failed, and no mode had been devised of imitating nature by uniting the constituents of this precious gem. In other words, the philosopher was able to convert diamonds into carbon, but he was ignorant of the art of converting carbon into diamonds. If the experiments of Professor Silliman can be relied on, this desideratum has in part been supplied. The last number of his Journal of Science contains an article on the philosophical instrument called the Deflagrator, invented by Professor Hare, of Philadelphia, by which it appears that charcoal, plumbago, and anthracite, have been fused by the power of that instrument, and transmuted into diamonds”. “
Stamford Mercury, 18 July, 1823.