Erasmus Jacobs'  Pretty Pebble

It all began in a casual way. In the summer of 1866, a water pipe  became clogged on the scorched and sunbaked Jacobs farm near the Orange River in South Africa, located in a poor district, by the name of  Hopetown. Farmer Daniel Jacobs asked his young son Erasmus to search for a thin branch to poke a hole through the pipe. Erasmus roamed around the farm until he found the branch he wanted, and then sat down in the shade of a tree to rest.

A short distance away, in the glare of the sun, he noticed that a stone appeared to be blinking at him and, curious, he picked it up. It was to him just  a "pretty pebble." Slipping it into his pocket, he took it home to his younger sister. She put it among the pebbles used in a game named  "Five Stones".

The children were playing this game when the former owner of the farm, Schalk van Niekerk, came to visit a few weeks later. He too noticed the stone, picked it up, took it to the window and tried to scratch the pane with it. Thinking it might be of some value, he asked  Mrs. Jacobs to sell it to him;  she laughed at the idea and told him that if he liked it he could have it for nothing.  Van Niekerk sold it a few days later to O'Reilly,  an Irish peddler and hunter.

There is some question whether Van Niekerk knew he was selling a diamond, but John Robert O'Reilly was sure he had bought one. He showed the stone to several gem-dealers in Hopetown who declared it to be no diamond but a "Topaz"  and of no value. After that, O'Reilly took it to Grahamstown to geologist Dr. William Guybon Atherstone for an expert opinion.  Atherstone told O'Reilly  that it was indeed a diamond and worth five hundred pounds (about $2,500.00).  O'Reilly took it to the governor of the Cape colony, Sir Philip Wodehouse and sold it to him for just that.

Clear, blue-white and about the size of a sparrow's egg, it weighed 21.50 carats and as a very "pretty pebble" indeed attracted a lot of attention. In its home territory, it had been known as the O'Reilly.  After the diamond was put on display at the Paris Exhibition of 1867, it was called the "Eureka" -- Greek for "I've found it" --  it is not known who named it.

With its exhibition, the first diamond rush began.

P.S.      Soon after the Exhibition, the  Eureka was cut into a 10.73 carat round brilliant. For many years, it was owned by Peter Locan of London. In 1966, it was purchased by De Beers and presented to the Parliament of South Africa in Cape Town.