ACROSS 3.3 BILLION YEARS AND 4 CONTINENTS TO A WOMAN'S HAND

The ancient Greeks believed that diamonds were splinters of stars fallen to the earth. It was even said by some that they were the tears of the Gods. Another legend has it that there was an inaccessible valley in Central Asia carpeted with diamonds, patrolled by birds of prey in the air and guarded by snakes of murderous gaze on the ground. However, the truth is that the exact origin of diamonds is still something of a mystery, even to scientists and geologists.
Even though the diamond is the hardest of all gemstones known to man, it is the simplest in composition. It is common carbon, like the graphite in a lead pencil, yet has a melting point of approximately 4,000 degrees centigrade, which is Two and a half times greater than the melting point of steel. Billions of years ago, the elemental forces of heat and pressure miraculously transformed the carbon into diamond in the cauldron of boiling magma that lay deep below the surface of the earth. The volcanic mass in which this crystallization took place, then thrust upwards and broke through the earth's surface to cool in kimberlite or lamproite Pipes. It is in these pipes that most diamonds are found today.