The Dollop with Dave Anthony and Gareth Reynolds - 235 - The Great Diamond Hoax

Episode Date: January 19, 2017

Comedians Dave Anthony and Gareth Reynolds examine the Great Diamond Hoax of the mid 1800's. SOURCES TOUR DATES REDBUBBLE MERCH 

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each week I Dave Anthony read a story to my friend Gareth Reynolds who has no idea what the topic is going to be about so not sure or has no idea how the intro is gonna go nailed it I just saw a large mammal I think it was a seal no that was not a seal it was seal shaped it's a cat it's a cat it's a cat named Jose should cats have necks look he it should linebackers have necks should top athletes have necks yeah yeah oh well they should well a lot of them don't and so that's the same with cats some athletic cats huh this he's like the jack kangaroo he's not fat well he's really slowly going into a box right now

yeah nope he's going over it that's right yeah so heavy crush the box now it's just dude it's not you're making it sound like it's a taped up box it's propped up there for him to have fun with it so of course it collapses really not no didn't know no he does know he's that happens 11 times a day what you just saw you didn't witness something special that's sad that was sad no seaworld sad you want to do one but people say this is funny not gary gara stay okay someone or something is tickling is it for fun and this is not going to come particularly quite good okay you are queen fakie of made up town

all hell queen shit of lies though a bunch of religious virgins go to mingle and do what pray see he's not even looking at you not even looking at you doesn't doesn't respond to doesn't respond to its calls dude he's not a seal 1820 all right 1820 and 1829 how is that possible what is happening cousins Philip Arnold and John slack were born in Hardin County Kentucky all right what are their names slack Philip Arnold and John slack John slack okay I knew Charlie slack in high school he beat me up near Elizabeth town okay it's close to where Abraham Lincoln was born I know that you don't you don't need to

tell me where Abraham Lincoln great people came from this Elizabeth town yeah Abraham Lincoln this guy the other guy they were raised as farmers but both joined the military to fight in the Mexican-American war okay or the Americans okay a war we're planning on revisiting soon yep looks like it yeah slack claimed he walked all the way to Mexico to join up okay wait he was on the Mexican side now he's in Kentucky and he said he walked all the way down to Mexico to get involved sorry as just a logistical go ahead if I may throw a logistical flag I have many why would you go to Mexico to join the American

side well I guess he might have walked to the border where the I mean we did go into Mexico wasn't like we were but he talked to somebody before he went into Mexico maybe or maybe he walked down I went hey you guys I'm gonna fight with you guys and they're like come on get a thing a hatchet or whatever it's not a game a kickball it feels like there's more hoops to jump through so you might be lying that's totally acceptable that's totally acceptable to think in this story I'm not picking up my logistical flag which is telling Arnold joined the fight a couple months later they both saw action and were

honorably discharged okay slack was let out a year earlier and he went back to Elizabeth town where he became a constable gold was discovered in California in 1848 and that set off the gold rush you knew that Dave I know that slack left his job and headed west and then cousin Arnold I mean that's not his first name but I'm calling him Arnold Philip went straight after being discharged in Mexico so he's a you're out and he went okay I'm gonna go let's get in on the gold rush business bingo they both reached the gold fields in mind with very little luck early in the 1850s they happen to find each other and

they stuck together so they didn't even know I guess back then they didn't have cell phones or ever okay yeah right wait you're doing this too holy shit how long you been here four years how's it going bad same I wish I never left I know they partnered in hydraulic mining in Yuba County and met a man named asbury harp ending okay sorry his name is asbury harp ending asbury harp ending I think I think it's a I think it's like it's like English situation yeah well it sounds like a musical jam yeah well he might be a musical himself we don't know yeah harp ending would soon become one of California's with the harp

that's what my granddad always said he would eventually soon become one of California's main financiers okay so in 1854 Arnold apparently they made some money because he headed back to Kentucky he bought a farm he got married started family and supposedly stashed some cash there it's okay but then he came back to San Francisco to make some more dough all right sourdough uh-huh in 1870 you like that one you're trying to resist an 1870 a man named James Cooper was working as an assistant bookkeeper for the diamond drill company in San Francisco near a drill maker that used diamond headed bits sure so Cooper is a

bookkeeper and he's just over 40 years old okay he was very interested in industrial grade diamonds that kept the drills running he's like fascinated by this stuff he went as far as to read through as much as he could on the subject and at some point Cooper befriended Arnold and slack and the cousins came into possession of a bag of uncut diamonds came into possession yep it is believe this is like how Michael Irving came into possession of crack it's magical it's believed Cooper stole them from his employer and then was gonna go in on a little something with these two guys and they just bailed

out okay wow Arnold mixed the diamonds with garnets rubies and sapphires that he bought from some Indians in Arizona it'll be the most beautiful thing ever it's just making like a beautiful rock I'm gonna put them all in a blender and then mush them into something and it's gonna be so beautiful so the cut rubies and emeralds and pearls and gold and diamonds you should be a voice in Christmas special no these kids won't have Christmas on my watch there the cousins not if I could collect all their teeth sorry the cousins so alone up here no one visits me I just who are you ah you don't even want to know who I'm the

ice man and nobody knows me well okay I spring touch me and you'll freeze thanks and that's the problem you see if I could be hugged perhaps my cold heart would melt but anyone who touches me also freezes wow that's a real quite a conundrum I toil with up here alone maybe you'll figure it out in 20 I always wonder will a boy save me the cousins took their little bag of gems and they went to the office of Robert sorry George D. Roberts who was a prominent services go businessman Arnold had worked for Roberts previously as a prospector so he knows the guy he goes to him okay Roberts was known to strike

quick when a business opportunity presented itself okay so Arlen Slack showed up one night at Robert's office they had the appearance of two men who were pretty weather beaten right so they've been outside a while sure couple catchers it showed up Arnold clutched a small leather bag they told Roberts what was inside was of great value and that they would have deposited it in the Bank of California but it was already closed then they acted suddenly like they didn't want to talk about what was in the bag wait this is to come on what is he like for finally Arnold slipped and said rough diamonds okay see what are

you doing when questioned by Roberts they wouldn't say where they had found the diamonds but they did let it slip that it was somewhere in Indian territory so wait they're holding back hey we can't tell you what's in the bag okay anyway how you been rough diamonds oh man I let it slip oh what are you gonna do all right as long as we don't tell him where it's from of course not our lips are sealed yeah these rough diamonds are from Indian territory hey whoa quote Roberts was very much elated by our discovery and promised Slack and myself to keep it a profound secret until we could explore the client and sinker and

now it's very important you don't have any of those slips one talking to others gentlemen good thing you did this in front of me until we can explore the country further and ascertain more fully the extent of our discoveries Arnold and Slack were good at working man and they made Roberts where he wouldn't tell anyone knowing full well that he would tell everyone oh god also I think any time someone uses ascertain you're out I'm a little like yeah those are suspicious people yeah nobody you can't casually say ascertain I hadn't ascertained that as soon as Arnold and Slack left Roberts told the founder of

the Bank of California William C. Ralston Ralston is a famous West Coast money just couldn't shut up no fuck no this guy's so Ralston's a famous West Coast money man he built hotels and mills and invested in pretty much everything including the Comstock load and the completion of the transcontinental railroad when the big four who funded it ran out of money he had thrown so much money into a silver venture in New Mexico that they named a town after him so he's he's money bags okay Johnson Roberts reached out by cable to a guy he knew who was currently in London getting ready to float a stock option for a new

the new silver venture when you say cable is that a what is that so that's how they used to communicate yeah but what is that that's just a what is a cable back thing you know I didn't even think about that when I wrote it I don't think it's like Morse code it's gonna be Morse yeah that's what it right would it just be like it's just kind of like a telegram probably maybe but I would assume that that's gonna be decoded 50s yeah there might be like a short bit sweet it was like Twitter yet 140 characters 140 characters so the guy who was there in London was Asbury Harpending Harpending quote Ralston's

description of it made Sinbad the sailor look like a novice he said that diamonds of incalculable value could be gathered in limitless quantities at nominal expense that they could be picked up on ant hills that a low estimate was a $50 million proposition sorry I'm gonna need a couple things cleared up let's start with the ant hills okay so they they they told them Arnold and slack told them that they're just harp this is Harpending they told this no they told this is Robert's and he told it to Harp yeah right okay so there's just diamonds laying around in this place and that they can just pick them up

and it won't cost much money to get them out of the ground because they're easy to grab and they're gonna be worth 50 million but that's the ant hills thing he's saying like they're in the ground yeah he's saying they're like on ant hills like they're like you can there's that many you can just reach in and grab them okay all right I'm gonna abandon that one usually so and Harpending he is the guy who was obsessed with the diamond like cutting right no which guy is he that guy's gone who's Harpending Harpending is the guy we met at first and he just worked with he just worked with Arnold okay all right gotcha that's all

okay so he hears this crazy story and Ralston tells Harpending you so he got to drop everything I come now you got to come now and Harpending's like I'm not really sounds kind of I mean can I bring the harp so he's not convinced but then rumors of a vast diamond field in America hit London financiers started calling Harpending for information because he knew Ralston suddenly it seemed real so what happened was is Roberts and Ralston were fucking telling everybody and then word got back to the guy it's just all nonsense right well we'll see but but now just okay so so Harpending finally heads for San

Francisco quote as fast as steamships and railroads would carry me oh I got there as quick as I could three weeks arrived oh door-to-door three weeks arrived in 1932 hello I'm old and forgot why I came so your eyes and said just go on May 1871 there he learned it was Arnold and slack he knew both of the men Arnold had previously worked for Roberts looking into mining properties and slack quote I had known as a plain man about town okay that's not a good description yeah he's very simple he's just a nobody to me Arnold and slack came back from another trip to the diamond field hey let me

tell you these diamonds are even more bountiful than we originally anticipated they're on trees yeah and instead of ants there those are diamonds now to the antian hills are actually diamonds diamond hills so the ants are diamonds and the hills diamonds and on top of the diamonds is a diamond this time they told Roberts they had 60 pounds of diamonds and rubies worth $600,000 of this guy's like oh my god gentlemen gentlemen let's be calm Roberts thought it was amazing and he brought more people in on the deal okay Ralston told them that a local jeweler had authenticated the diamonds okay all

right so but that still doesn't corroborate whether or not you found the motherload so now there were Roberts Ralston harp ending plus San Francisco mining entrepreneurs William Lent and General George Dodge well that was a great name yeah lent for a money man a general who dodged they all wanted to get Arnold and slack out of the picture by buying them out as soon as possible okay smart yep eluse the losers real quick that's right but Arnold and slack were not down with a buyout at first then slack asked for a hundred thousand dollars for his share fifty thousand dollars now and then fifty

thousand the next time they came back with diamonds okay they said they wanted to make another trip to the diamond field and the investors could then come and see it after okay Arnold said they would come back with a couple million dollars worth of diamonds that would send the city into a diamond madness of a feeling that might be true and they would give the diamonds to the investors as a guarantee of good faith okay then so let us go pet the dragon and then we'll come back and you can meet the dragon so the two men took the 50 grand and headed to England where they bought uncut gems using fake names okay wow this is yeah

yeah I mean this is definitely this is like you're letting it ride Arnold called himself on Dell and slack called himself bircham and that is enough I guess I don't think anybody's asking for idea when you just need to have a different name when you're buying diamonds in the 1850s no one fucking cares I know but it's still pretty amazing that all you have to do is be like I'm Gus Rangas thanks a bunch so they bought twenty thousand dollars with their rough diamonds and rubies they bought thousands of them the seller asked them if they wanted them cut but they said they did not no actually make them look

really make them look shit like they're out in the ground and can you throw a couple ants on them Arnold and slack went ahead to their diamond field and put the rest of the gems they purchased in England all over the field some in the ground my god they're Easter eggs they then returned and met Harp ending at a train station just east of San Francisco Harp ending quote both were travel stained and weather beaten and had the general appearance of having gone through much hardship and probation sure slack was asleep but Arnold sat grimly wrecked like a vigilant old soldier with a rifle by his side also a

bulky looking buckskin package I don't slack said they had pulled enough diamonds to fill two sacks okay unfortunately one of the slacks have been dropped in a river while they were crossing on a raft the luck well they came back and the river had gone up and they had to build a raft sure it didn't work out that great and they dropped a sack of diamonds yeah well that's okay cuz here's one sack how could there not be two they gave the sack to Harp ending when they got to Oakland he gave them a receipt and he headed to San Francisco on a ferry a receipt receipt for a second time here you go here you go sack of

diamonds one it's a ride-off Harp ending rushed home where the other investors were waiting gentlemen I have fantastic news we lost one but we got one well they dropped one in a river quote we did not waste time on ceremonies a sheet was spread on my billiard table I cut the elaborate fastenings of the sack and taking hold of the lower corners dumped the contents it seemed like a dazzling many-colored cataract of light yep yep that'll do it that's what it was they're all clearly pretty excited but they were still businessmen sure clearly so they took 10% of the gems to jeweler Charles Lewis Tiffany in New York City to be

appraised Tiffany yeah sure Tiffany's and company you know yeah guy yeah they also hired a mining engineer to check out the diamond field and to get everyone excited they had a San Francisco jeweler put a bunch of the stones on sample in his window saying that it worked but so sorry so like what is in their delusion brains what are they what do they want they don't they want they're gonna sell stock so they're they have this area now this amazing area this beautiful utopia and they're going to sell stock and allowing people to go there no they're gonna sell stock and mining it like like you would if you found oh okay right

okay gonna create a company right okay they're going public going public okay it worked the city was in a diamond fever which would greatly increase the value of their investment the investors formed a corporation and valued it at ten million dollars I mean that's insane that's like a crazy starting figure today it's pretty close to what uber is it's not it's madness yeah all right so where do we want to start off well let's not get crazy how about a trillion dollars right I mean we're good we're great okay so now they went to New York hired a lawyer Samuel Samuel Barlow to represent them in October 1871 you

have some of these names okay an attorney whose name is Barlow yeah I mean you know this is what the world was it was easy to pass me are you Tom pass me hey so they go to the lawyer's house for the appraisal Charles Lewis Tiffany was there as well as two Civil War generals George McClellan who had commanded the Union Army was there because the group thought his name would attract other investors this is just insane and General Benjamin Butler was there because he was now a US represent representative and they thought he could handle any legal issues in Congress if the diamond field turned out to be on federal land I mean

they are putting together quite a package their businessmen they know what to do yeah fucking take the land from the people and they got a name they got someone on the inside Butler was nicknamed the beast for his treatment of civilians in New Orleans during the war so they got that guy okay and the editor of the New York Tribune was also there Tiffany went through the stones which included some rubies armolds and sapphires he said quote quote he quote viewed them gravely and held them up to the light looking every wit the part of a great connoisseur then he delivered his verdict okay gentlemen these are beyond

precious stones of enormous value it's a bold intro gentlemen these are beyond precious these are beyond he could not say exactly how valuable they were until he took them back to his shop and had his guy look at them which was done Tiffany then reported the stones were worth $150,000 bought for 20,000 20 and then they threw a bunch on the ground so so that's quite a bit more than the 20,000 it's just it's their photocopying the BS it's it's spreading further that's 10% of the bag right 10% of the half of the 20 oh god harping and did some math and concluded the sack was worth 1.5 million mm-hmm

turns out Charles Lewis Tiffany and his I think it's lipid lipidary didn't know shit about uncut stones so they were taking talking out of their ass so Tiffany basically just got cut stones and that seemed about to work with right as he brings back to his guy and they don't know shit about uncut diamonds right so they just crazy over right yeah the guy who slices meat has a cow in front of them and see like it's how do you say night I say nine pounds a billion dollars yep but word was now out in New York and speculators were circling everyone wanted in on the investment it's perfect when word reached Arnold

in San Francisco he was surprised and excited yeah what sorry I saw you said it was what squeeze me 150 150,000 but they think it's more so it's like 1.5 million you believe it you must not be surprised because you knew that I've been to the now I'm not surprised at all boy I would love to take a look at this ant farm of yours it's a big one so his con now has been blessed by the most famous jeweler in the US who is apparently a moron Arnold then made his play starting to think there were maybe diamonds there he's like wait did I miss something with her actual diamonds so Arnold then made a stink and

said he was putting his property at the mercy of others without security right slack got his second fifty thousand and Arnold got a hundred thousand he then headed back to London as quickly as possible and there he bought eight thousand oh god more uncut gems from the same guy now what'd you do with the first batch pal I must have dropped him in a river oh it's happening now he knew he's gonna have to trick the investors well respected mining engineer Henry Janon who the corporate members had hired okay harping harping quote as a great mine expert and consulting engineer he was without a peer in the US

perhaps in the world nearly all the big operators were willing to stake their fortunes on his judgment so this is the test this is the guy it was Janon it was said Janon had examined over 600 mines and never made a mistake so Arnold and slack met Janon General Dodge harpenning and an English buddy of harpennings in st. Louis hello I don't have a name I think a blueberry that's his name I'm blueberry I'm quite fancy so they mean st. Louis there they got on a Union Pacific train to Rawlings Wyoming the field where they had spread out around the diamonds was close to black Butte's Wyoming but Arnold wanted to

keep them from knowing exactly where it was so he crisscrossed and winded his way on a confusing four-day horseback journey that was totally unnecessary with them yeah so he's taken the four guys like on this crazy journey that he could have just they could have just gotten there in like half a day right but he wants to make sure that they have no real clue where it is so he's like it's just a little further he kept pretending to be lost getting off his horse and climbing a nearby hill to get his bearings the men started to get irritated and started fighting with one another but finally they arrived at the diamond

field at about four o'clock on June 4th 1872 all right they immediately started looking for diamonds Arnold started suggesting where they should dig and by God he was right dude this is an Easter egg heart this is what you do with kids on an Easter egg I don't I can't find any why don't you check this bush check this bush here I bet if you're not a little further even check the bush a little further harp ending quote after a few minutes a blueberry gave a yell he held up something glittering in his hand for more than an hour diamonds were being found in profusion together with occasional rubies emeralds and sapphires

which they're just throwing aside get these stupid rubies out of here this one on for two days they're just having diamond orgasms for two days the mining engineer Janin lost his no besides being given a $2,500 fee for his services the investor said he could purchase 1,000 shares of stock in the diamond new venture for $10 a share and his eyes bugged out of his head Janin was quote wildly enthusiastic he was saying his name should be associated with the most momentous discovery of the age oh wow poor guy because he thought the surrounded area could also have gem gems Janin staked out 3,000 acres so

now he's now he's going everywhere he's all in but the gems were just located on one acre so weird what do you think was special about the acre oh no in his report so Janin wrote a report he wrote that the proposed a hundred thousand shares of stock were easily worth $40 each oh geez oh boy so it started out as ten he also pointed out that this new field would certainly control the gem market of the world after they were done the group headed back the cousins must be like this is good but maybe too good are people really this I mean this is this will change the way world handles finance I thought we're gonna make like

20 grand I'll buy 300,000 acres no no no no no think about it if they're all as populous as this we'd be fools not to so after they're done like three or four days or whatever they head back and they left Slack and the English guy Ruberry to guard the site but Ruberry and Slack hated each other so they just bailed and went their separate ways okay good no one ever heard from Slack again okay he had a fucking hundred thousand yeah right every reason yeah and he's on a lie well sorry on a hunch back in San Francisco Arnold got another 150,000 dollars from the investors as per their agreement he also immediately sold his

stock to harping which gave him more than 300,000 oh now his total haul was $550,000 which is about 8 million in today's money it's so even though he still had more shares coming his way he figured he was testing his luck so he bailed and went back to Kentucky to live with his family yeah honestly at that point you're like yeah deal deal deal bye bye yep investors were fine with it Lent said well they were probably like what a fool Janin told him they could pull a million dollars with the diamonds a month with just 20 laborers oh god it's like when you pick apples except it's diamonds and that he's like the the

guy to go to and he's buying it more than anyone yeah 25 men the top of financial guys in San Francisco were then allowed to buy stock in the company at 80k each well two million dollars was placed into the Bank of California not a share of stock was placed on the market quote although the excitement was intense all the papers were running stories Clarence King was bored in Rhode Island on January 6th 1842 his father traded goods with China and spent a lot of time away from the family he then died in 1848 so Clarence was raised by his mother as a child he became interested in the great outdoors and

natural history his mother encouraged him to in these endeavors as did his local Reverend and when he was 10 he went to schools in Boston and New Haven and at 13 he was accepted to the prestigious Hartford High School there he went from there he went to Sheffield Scientific School which is part of Yale okay he then graduated with a phb sorry peanut is that the PhD you get at the 99 cent store peanut ham and butter phb it's I think it's a philosophy degree it's I mean we're just very conditioned to PhD no I get it no hate on a phb but then he and some friends definitely sounds like something a doctor gives his kid on take your kid

to work day have some phb buddy you're a phb of a man so then King and some friends took a Yale robot for the summer and rode up along the shores of Lake Champlain and some Canadian Rivers after he's in the home of a professor when he heard a letter read aloud by a dude who would just climb Mount Shasta suddenly he had an interest in geology okay and 1863 King and two friends took the rails to Missouri then hopped a wagon train and went to Carson City Nevada okay eventually he found himself in California where he got a job with the California Geological Survey but without the being paid part okay he got a free

job sure well they got a free worker he got a free job sure yep his job was free I have a job yep you didn't have to pay for it right suckers they climb many peaks in the west mapping as they went he named Mount Whitney okay in 1864 King and a friend were appointed to make a boundary survey of Yosemite Valley next he and his friend were given a job of surveying the Mojave Desert and Arizona when his stepfather daddy came back to the east coast where he lobbied Congress to pay him to survey the Great Basin region he got federal funding and was named a US geologist of the Geological Exploration of the 40th parallel so now

he's just fucking mapping so they put together a team of three dozen men and for over six years explored the west from eastern California to Wyoming 80,000 square miles so he kind of knows things he knows some shit sure around this time just as the survey is almost done King found himself on a train with some of his men and an engineer named Janon okay oh boy Janon was returning from a time in field and probably wouldn't shut up boy you're not gonna believe it look at my bucket honestly and they got more than the eye can see fucking crazy I'm all in if this were to collapse my life

would be devastated I'm all in Janon is all Jan in one of Clarence's crew geologist Samuel F. Emmons wrote that quote suspicious looking characters on the train are returning diamond hunters Harry Janon shows us some of the diamonds pretty crystals Clarence's team had heard of the diamond fever that was hitting the west but most of the rumors had come out of Arizona New Mexico which was outside of his survey now he found out that the diamond field was supposed to be in the northwest in his survey area this was not far from where geologist Emmons had been working so this was a concern for Clarence a huge discovery of

diamonds would be a problem for his survey and calling to question how thorough he and his crew had been right which may cause those in Congress who were against funding the job to cut off their money right okay so Clarence Clarence King and his crew decided they had to check out the diamond field as soon as possible Clarence Emmons and a third man headed for Fort Bridger Wyoming two weeks later they were there they went there because they had already boarded some mules there for the winter back in San Francisco Janon having clearly just had an interesting conversation with some geologists on a train sold all of his

shares wow wow what a great talk making a sweet 30,000 hey alright somebody's laughing all the oh my god so how much is he in the hole who Janon well Janon's out he's he's made tons of money I mean oh he did yeah at this point he's made 32,500 and then on top of that so he just sold that immediately but still made money yeah he made he was given shares or allowed to buy shares thousand shares I thought you said well he no he made a 30,000 above his feet okay so he made so he made a good amount of money already on top plus his but he left the train he was like yeah I'm still really into it hey I want to get out yeah no

it's awesome I think like wow I mean we're gonna make so much money you guys but I gotta get I gotta come cash it out dog six I gotta call it Bill coming I gotta get out of here so I gotta go you know whatever you guys are gonna be right now whatever you have on you I gotta go fine I gotta get moving I am blanking where we're gonna deal I am just very very happy to be a part of such a great deal okay throw money to cash I'll take eight dollars I'm not kidding I just want to walk a week and a half later King is to a buddy started a 150 mile journey to where they had deduced the site was from speaking to Janon

their own field work and other clues so they fucking put it together yeah that's a smart these like that took you four days they traveled through brutally cold conditions after five days five days they set up camp and started looking around it didn't take them long to find a posted claim notice by Janet okay they then followed other posted notices until they came quote upon a bare iron stained bit of coarse sandstone rock about a hundred feet long okay thrown down throwing down our bridal rains we began examining the rock on our hands and knees and in another instant I had found a small ruby this was indeed the

spot the diamond fever had now attacked us with vigor and while daylight lasted we continued in this position picking up precious stones and when a diamond was found it was quite a time before our benumbing fingers could succeed in grasping it because it was so cold right when they went to sleep that night they were dreaming of how wealthy they would be but the next day King realized that whatever whenever he found a diamond he also found a dozen rubies it was a bit too perfect for it to be occurring naturally also most of the gems were found only in disturbed ground and it got worse rubies found in an hills were

surrounded by footprints oh my god wait they're lazy and quote besides the top hole by which the ants made their exit there was visible in the side another small break in the crust okay so the slide them in the side yeah it's pretty pretty standard and hills that did not have footprints or broken crusts did not have rubies weird quote our explanation was that someone must have pushed a ruby in or two on the end of a stick they spent days doing more tests which included digging a trench 10 feet deep in a gulch where diamonds should have been disturbed well below the

surface but there were no diamonds in it then on the fourth day a man rode up on a horse okay he was quote a stout party city dressed and looking very much out of keeping with his surroundings have you found any carrots around here the man asked one of the crews said it was a fraud and the man responded quote what a chance to sell short on the stock wait so he's saying this is a good time to sell yeah so he literally is like if you wrote him in a movie people be like that's two on the nose he turned out to be JF Barry he was a New York diamond dealer who had followed King's party from Fort Bridger and had been watching them with a

spyglass from the top of the nearby bluffs guys bad ass about the diamond he knows about the diamond fever he knows that they were out there somewhere he goes to this fucking place he sees these guys come out and he follows them and then he's also like so it is BS oh it's all shit Clarence then decided to go to San Francisco find out the status of the company and prevent any further selling of stock he also wanted to get there before Barry could get back and tell everyone of the fraud first so he wants credit right who wouldn't so Clarence left camp well before dawn rode the 45 miles to Black Butte station got

on a train and arrived in San Francisco on November 10th he went straight to Janans hotel and spent the night explaining in detail what they had found and convinced Janan he was right and it was a fraud the next morning King and Janan met the investors at Ralston's office at the Bank of California so we got good news what's happening well boy and let me tell you one thing before you get into it we've been like kids on Christmas I can't wait to hear the good news okay now dish it's we are excited okay should we like this guys now wait let's light them now come on light them head the light around all right okay all

right shut up hit us with the good news he said that they were utterly the diamonds fields were utterly utterly valueless and that they have been evictives of unparalleled fraud what's the good news and he wrote read them a letter that he had written that was to be published with all this information the express explained the test he and his men had done sure and the investors were quote astonished and thrown into utter consternation okay let's not a that's everybody not freak out hold on now hold on now there's a lot of I think there's a lot of good that can um but I brought in whatever my money and two

turns into gold damn it's one of the mint men told King he could gain financially if he were to sit on the news for a day and I'll tell you I mean that's a game over dude one more hit King responded quote there is not enough money in the bank of California to make me delay a publication a single hour we have more money the men then agreed to stop the plan sale of a hundred thousand shares of stock at a hundred dollars a share so people gone so okay a hundred dollars a share yeah a hundred thousand like I mean at that game like I mean oil money it's insane the whole economy would be based on yeah at time at that

point they talked King into leading another party including Jan and back to the field the group set out the next day when they arrived at the not diamond field it was so cold that one man's whiskey was frozen in the bottle general David cotton who had become a general manager of the company three weeks before inspected with King and reported back to the investors that he had seen ruby scattered on bear rock where quote it would have been impossible for nature to have deposited them as for a person standing in San Francisco to toss a marble in the air and have it fall on bugger ill can he like he could

have said that just get to it he could have said a lot so what it's fake or not well like I'm saying I have it would be it would be far easier to find if you want to look for diamonds you'd have a better chance having a picnic on a fired cannonball or or putting a hair on the moon yeah exactly so any questions yeah what are you talking about okay you would have a better chance throwing a snowball right onto a train headed for Tennessee is there are there diamonds there I'm answering your question no you're not I'm creating a parallel now you want to know if there are diamonds there right when you were general did

you win any battles uh well no but uh-huh everyone had diarrhea one day now listen okay now wait wait that's you'd have a better chance uh-huh putting a checker uh-huh on an ostrich yeah who's going to Phoenix okay someone assume there's that it's not real that's my point to you that's the point I'm making you I'm gonna shoot you in the face well you'd have a harder chance okay shooting me than you would put in a bullet in your mouth and spitting it through a drain spout okay like we always said where I'm from general you're fired well I don't believe I was ever hired to be totally honest with everyone

so after the investors got the report and heard Janon tried to explain why he had been so wrong they voted to publish Kingsland hard no eye contact on that moment so I'm uh totally way off I guess I was so fired up so what I got there and it's just tough but again remember this is a time where there's not a lot of education people just say they are like King who is now this crazy awesome geologic survey right didn't have any actual training in that right he got a philosophy degree right and learned out there in the so yeah who knows what kind of education Janon had in engineering right just a guy went into a hole well

he was excited so they voted to publish Kingsletter and dissolve the company the San Francisco Chronicle on November 26 had a huge headline unmasked followed by the great diamond fiasco the mammoth fraud exposed Janon was the only swindler to profit only only swindled to profit I don't know if you call them swindled at that point yeah since Arnold and Slack were long gone the reporters focused on the victims because the victims are all rich millionaires the papers mocked them as gullible Janon was torn apart in the press for being a so-called mining engineer who was so easily fooled miming

miming engineer the papers then turned on harping as being suspected of being one of the con men because he was reported to have been in London at the time of one of Arnold's diamond buying sprees so the first time he bought diamonds yeah he are bending was there right yeah it was discovered that general Butler picked up a thousand shares of stock for pushing a mining act through Congress that allowed the company to buy the federal land that held the diamond fields so he's in trouble I mean boy what it must have been a fun run when you were able to be like hey this guy took money so let's talk about it and

people like no yeah William Lent lost 350,000 and Ralston lost 250,000 Clarence King was a hero the Chronicle editorialized that we have escaped thanks to God and Clarence King a great financial calamity and they were right that's pretty cool in your partner's god the interest was so high in the diamond mine that they would have sold tons of stock harping said quote it would have caused a catastrophe almost without parallel in the civilized world the public was keyed up to the point of speculative craze such as even the Comstock never saw not alone in San Francisco but in nearly

every financial sector on earth millions upon millions would have been invested that's weird I wonder if that relates to anything a lot of people know a lot of people saw this as the government acting on behalf of the people people because King worked for the government and he was expertly informed incorruptible and smarter than the greedy rich no one ever found out what became a John Slack it was believed he left the country or died soon after leaving the diamond fields but in 1967 Bruce A. Woodard an accountant who had become obsessed with the hoax wrote that slack had taken a job building caskets

in St. Louis and eventually moved to White Oaks New Mexico where he became an undertaker living alone until he died at 76 in 1896 he left buying an estate of $1,600 so he I didn't put this in here but he went to st. Louis and opened up this casket building company which eventually either burned out or something happened to it okay he was out of all his money and then he moved she's what's happened that fella he died he died can't you just easily switch it to a crematorium at that point no yeah Arnold did what did you think you got coffins I was never doing that I don't know I'm burning stuff here yeah I don't

did okay in July 1872 he bought a two-story brick house in Elizabeth town Kentucky and moved his family into it he bought 500 acres nearby and bred horses sheep and pigs he put everything in his wife's name smart yeah smartest guy a grand jury and said just go and died at Arnold and slack for fraud but the contents of the indictment were never revealed it is believed the investors didn't want any more embarrassing publicity especially the kind a trial would bring and they quashed the indictment when I was told of the indictments by a Louisville paper he said he had retained his own counsel a

good Henry rifle but Arnold eventually did settle out of court with William Lent he gave him a hundred and fifty thousand dollars oh wow this is the closest he came to acknowledging he had planted diamonds still he was seen as a hero in the area a man who had taken from the rich after the devastation suffered by the South in the war he was around that it was found that in 1870 Arnold and slack oh so it was found that in eight oh this it was found in that in 1870 Arnold and slack had made a couple of lucky turns selling mines and had made over 50,000 which they had in a bank the deposit was withdrawn in bulk and was

traced in the purchase of diamonds in the markets of Amsterdam and London they bought them from many different businesses to not raise suspicion and that was their initial stake the next time Arnold went there he just walked into one business and asked to see their diamonds and said how much for the lot mm-hmm in 1873 Arnold got into the banking game when he invested in a local bank that had temporarily closed its doors five years later he got into a disagreement with another bank in town which led to shoot out whoa whoa whoa okay but your money in our bankable fucking kill the other guys I mean I love it I

love to bank shooting it out yeah chase just shot BOA what truly right I mean that's kind of like the first thing you think I would I would that be yeah and chase to kill each other Wells Fargo break it up and you also shoot three bystanders were wounded and Arnold was shot by a shotgun blast in the shoulder he survived six months later though he came down with ammonia and died at the age of 49 his family was left well off though several hundred thousand dollars I've never been accounted for King became an international celebrity as the whole affair was followed in London and New York his book even today is

considered a classic of American nature writing he was friends with people like Henry Adams John Hay and Henry James hey called hey called Clarence King the best and brightest man of his generation King returned to the East Coast after a survey and published a book based on his work called systematic geology in 1878 which one critic called the most important single contribution made to the scientific knowledge of the continent but even Clarence King fell under the spell of money he tried ranching mining and even banking but it he didn't have the mind for any of them he lost more money than he made and he lost the

money of many of his friends as well he eventually died deep in debt of tuberculosis in a small brick house in Phoenix in 1901 he was 59 his friend Teddy Roosevelt sent a wire of condolences from the White House Wow even the fucking smart guy died broken yeah cuz he's trying to be rich about the story is he just have a job and have fun no yeah it's like the ring everyone's got to be rich yeah once you see it you're like wait I got it but the sirens sing loudly for me different this time yeah it would have imploded the international economic like the whole

system would have collapsed well and for those of us who go hey what would that look like you know potentially good news on the way it ends with Trump yeah potentially you might be able to actually see what happens when I'm in America they're like no no now you guys use yen we're like what ah no you guys use yen now so yeah no we did that well our plan is that we're gonna put up a big fence around where we live and you guys will figure out your new yen economy all right all right we'll be in Elysium thanks okay bye close that hatch door close the hatch door I don't want to look at him anymore close the hatch

we sell diamonds sign diamonds we sign diamonds sell diamonds and potentially soon we'll be decal and cars with our diamond signatures all right yeah soon this year this year man this year may I guess I'm not