AMAZING CARBON
Soot from a smoky candlesoft, black, opaque, so worthless it is wiped away as a nuisance. This is the element called carbon. The diamond in a queen's tiara harder than any other natural substance, colorless, transparent, flashing with all the brilliance of fresh dew, so costly it is worth a king's ransom. This also is carbon, nothing more, nothing less. The difference between them is this: soot forms at ordinary temperature and pressure; diamond at a temperature and pressure so high it is equivalent to that existing 150 miles below the earth's surface.

TRUST: THE BASIS OF ALL TRADING
In the stark, cavernous lobby of the U.S. diamond industry's "home" in New York City, elevator doors bang monotonously. Throughout the day they pour out an endless army of diamond people - dealers, messengers, secretaries, cutters. Most distinctive are the Hasidic Jews with their flat-brimmed black hats, long black coats and, often, resplendent beards. This is pure New York, a kaleidoscope of color and fast-shifting patterns. In this world the total business is trading diamonds.

Half a world away the scene is totally different. It is early morning and Rampura Main Road in Surat, India's diamond cutting center, is a spectacle of movement. Buzzing scooters, beeping taxis, ox carts that vie for inches of the narrow street, destitute men hauling bags of cement, push cart merchants and women walking with their saris ablaze in the dusty wake of passing traffic.

Around 10 a.m., just as the heat of the day takes hold, young men begin collecting on the street. First by tens, then quickly by the hundreds. Within an hour, the throngs of white-shirted young men have squeezed all other traffic on to different streets and the real business of Rampura Main Road begins: trading diamonds. Geographical boundaries are irrelevant to diamond dealers. They live more in a state of mind than in a country. Similar methods of business and codes of conduct are held in equal respect in Surat and New York, in Tel Aviv and in Antwerp, in London and Los Angeles-in all the trading places of the world, whether they are street curbs or elegant office suites. The dealer's word is his bond. Woe betide the person who cheats or lies. He will be shut out of the diamond world as absolutely as a shunned Amish sinner. Mazel u Broche.