Qualla: Eureka Diamond https://qualla.com/eureka-diamond en-us © 2026 Bendyline Mon, 20 Jul 2026 10:21:25 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_res/siteimages/rsslogo.png Qualla: Eureka Diamond https://qualla.com/eureka-diamond Eureka Diamond: Introduction https://qualla.com/eureka-diamond/ It traveled in an ordinary paper envelope. No armed courier, no locked box, no insurance policy. In 1867, the stone that would rewrite the economic future of an entire continent was mailed from Colesberg to Grahamstown in a letter, because nobody along the Orange River quite believed it was what it appeared to be. A fifteen-year-old farm boy named Erasmus Stephanus Jacobs had found it near Hopetown, a small settlement in the Northern Cape. He thought it was pretty. His neighbor Schalk Van Niekerk thought it might be valuable. The acting Civil Commissioner in Colesberg, Lorenzo Boyes, scratched it against glass and watched the glass give way. "I believe it to be a diamond," he said. He was right, and nothing in South Africa would be the same again.

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]]> Mon, 09 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/k/d/c/s/eureka-diamond-wp/kdcs-eureka-diamond-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Eureka Diamond: A Pebble and a Boy https://qualla.com/eureka-diamond/ Erasmus Stephanus Jacobs was fifteen when he picked up the stone near the banks of the Orange River in 1867. What drew his eye is not recorded, but the 21.25-carat yellowish crystal must have caught the light differently from the surrounding gravel. Jacobs showed the stone to his...

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]]> Mon, 09 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/k/d/c/s/eureka-diamond-wp/kdcs-eureka-diamond-a-pebble-and-a-boy.mp3 0:06 2 full Eureka Diamond: From Farmland to Fever https://qualla.com/eureka-diamond/ The Eureka Diamond, as it came to be called, was displayed at the 1867 Paris Exhibition, where it served notice to the world that southern Africa held mineral wealth worth pursuing. Within two years, prospectors were swarming the banks of the Orange and Vaal rivers, overturning g...

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]]> Mon, 09 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/k/d/c/s/eureka-diamond-wp/kdcs-eureka-diamond-from-farmland-to-fever.mp3 0:06 3 full Eureka Diamond: Cut, Sold, and Returned https://qualla.com/eureka-diamond/ The original rough stone weighed 21.25 carats. It was eventually cut into a 10.73-carat cushion-shaped brilliant, a reduction typical of early diamond cutting, where maximizing the stone's fire and clarity mattered more than preserving weight. The cutting diminished the stone's m...

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]]> Mon, 09 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/k/d/c/s/eureka-diamond-wp/kdcs-eureka-diamond-cut-sold-and-returned.mp3 0:06 4 full Eureka Diamond: The Ground Beneath Hopetown https://qualla.com/eureka-diamond/ The geology that placed a diamond in a boy's path near Hopetown is the same geology that studded the entire region with gems. Kimberlite pipes, formed between 120 and 90 million years ago, punched through the Earth's crust carrying diamonds from the upper mantle to the surface. O...

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]]> Mon, 09 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/k/d/c/s/eureka-diamond-wp/kdcs-eureka-diamond-the-ground-beneath-hopetown.mp3 0:06 5 full