The Stolen Bacillus and Other Incidents
''The Stolen Bacillus and Other Incidents'' is a collection of fifteen fantasy and science fiction short stories written by the English author H. G. Wells between 1893 and 1895. It was first published by Methuen & Co. in 1895 and was Wells's fir ...
'', the first collection of short stories by Wells, published in 1895.
In the story, a businessman hears an account from a man who has devoted years attempting to make synthetic diamonds, only to end as a desperate outcast.
Historical background
It was known since experiments of
Antoine Lavoisier
Antoine-Laurent de Lavoisier ( , ; ; 26 August 17438 May 1794), When reduced without charcoal, it gave off an air which supported respiration and combustion in an enhanced way. He concluded that this was just a pure form of common air and th ...
that diamond was a form of carbon.
Wells's story appeared a few years after the claims of James Ballantyne Hannay in 1879 and
Henri Moissan
Ferdinand Frédéric Henri Moissan (28 September 1852 – 20 February 1907) was a French chemist and pharmacist who won the 1906 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work in isolating fluorine from its compounds. Moissan was one of the original mem ...
in 1893, that they had made artificial diamonds. Moissan heated charcoal (a form of carbon) and iron in a furnace until the iron melted, then rapidly cooled it, claiming that the iron would generate high pressure and transform some of the charcoal into (very small) diamonds. Others tried to repeat this experiment in later years, with only a few reporting that they could reproduce the result; commercially successful production of synthetic diamonds was not achieved until the 1950s.History of Man Made Diamonds Man Made Diamond Information, accessed 16 March 2014.
Story
The narrator is getting relief from his business life by gazing at the river from the
Thames Embankment
The Thames Embankment is a work of 19th-century civil engineering that reclaimed marshy land next to the River Thames in central London. It consists of the Victoria Embankment and Chelsea Embankment.
History
There had been a long history of f ...
near
Temple
A temple (from the Latin ) is a building reserved for spiritual rituals and activities such as prayer and sacrifice. Religions which erect temples include Christianity (whose temples are typically called churches), Hinduism (whose temples ...
(
Essex Street
Essex Street is a north-south street on the Lower East Side of the New York City borough of Manhattan. North of Houston Street, the street becomes Avenue A, which goes north to 14th Street. South of Canal Street it becomes Rutgers Street, the ...
is mentioned, and there is a view of
Waterloo Bridge
Waterloo Bridge () is a road and foot traffic bridge crossing the River Thames in London, between Blackfriars Bridge and Hungerford Bridge and Golden Jubilee Bridges. Its name commemorates the victory of the British, Dutch and Prussians at the ...
and the towers of
Westminster
Westminster is an area of Central London, part of the wider City of Westminster.
The area, which extends from the River Thames to Oxford Street, has many visitor attractions and historic landmarks, including the Palace of Westminster, Bu ...
beyond). Here, someone who looks like a tramp starts a conversation with him. Despite his appearance he talks like an educated businessman. He has a bag of what appear to be uncut diamonds. One, which is as big as the tip of a thumb, he offers to sell for a hundred pounds, but the narrator is suspicious.
The man tells him that he has spent years on a project to make diamonds. It was done secretly, so that others would not copy his work, and so that he could sell his diamonds without it being known that they could be produced in large quantities. After his money ran out he conducted his experiments in cheap lodgings in
Kentish Town
Kentish Town is an area of northwest London, England in the London Borough of Camden, immediately north of Camden Town. Less than four miles north of central London, Kentish Town has good transport connections and is situated close to the ope ...
, and had various menial jobs. He finally succeeded when, using an idea suggested by experiments of
Gabriel Auguste Daubrée
Gabriel Auguste Daubrée MIF FRS FRSE (25 June 181429 May 1896) was a French geologist, best known for applying experimental methods to structural geology. He served as the director of the École des Mines as well as the president of the Fren ...
, he put the mixture which might produce diamonds together with dynamite in a cylinder too strong to burst. However, as he inspected the results, a neighbour in the lodgings house, thinking he was a bomb-making
anarchist
Anarchism is a political philosophy and movement that is skeptical of all justifications for authority and seeks to abolish the institutions it claims maintain unnecessary coercion and hierarchy, typically including, though not neces ...
, told him he had called the police. He abandoned the lodgings house, taking with him his diamonds; this left him in the state in which the narrator has found him: homeless and carrying diamonds which he cannot try to sell without causing suspicion.
The narrator thinks the man's story might be genuine, and gives him his business card, but although he has some communication with him for a period, he does not see the man again. Reflecting later on the encounter, he wonders if the man is dead, or will perhaps re-emerge and become famous; he wonders if he missed a business opportunity.
See also
* ''
The Doings of Raffles Haw
''The Doings of Raffles Haw'' ( 1891) is a novel by Scottish author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle involving an inventor who has discovered a way to turn lead into gold.
Plot outline
A mysterious millionaire, Raffles Haw, comes to reside in Tamfield in ...
'', an 1891 novel by Sir
Arthur Conan Doyle
Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle (22 May 1859 – 7 July 1930) was a British writer and physician. He created the character Sherlock Holmes in 1887 for ''A Study in Scarlet'', the first of four novels and fifty-six short stories about Ho ...
involving an inventor of a process for turning lead into gold