Crater of Diamonds Newsletter

Visitors to the park and to our website often ask “how much is a carat in weight? and how do “points” relate to carats?” Unless you buy diamonds on a regular basis, most of us don’t know the answer. The word “carat” was first used in the Middle East. All the seeds from the carob tree (see illustration) were considered to weigh the same amount. Thus, the diamonds were weighed against the carob seeds, with each diamond that weighed the same as one carob seed considered to be one carat. In the Far East they used grains of rice instead of carob seeds, and the term that they still use today is “grainer” instead of “carat”. As humans began to develop more accurate measurements, the weight for the carat became standardized. Today’s carat has the following equivalent weights: 1 carat = 200 milligrams or 0.2 grams, 0.007,055 ounces or 3.086 grains troy.

Points are simply the smaller divisions of a carat. One hundred points equals one carat, just as one hundred cents equals one dollar. The point division makes it easier to talk about diamonds that are less than a carat. So, 25 points is equal to a quarter of a carat. Here at the Crater of Diamonds State Park a majority of stones that people find are less than a carat, so we list most of our diamond finds in points rather than as parts of a carat.

Another confusion that we find with the word carat surrounds the word “karat” and how it relates to diamonds. It doesn’t relate at all, since “karats” are used to discuss the fineness or purity of gold. Thus, a 24-karat item is pure gold. Pure gold is too soft to make into wearable jewelry, so other metals are added to give the gold strength. Thus, it is not really a measure of weight, like the word “carat”, but of the percentage of pure gold found in any piece of jewelry. For example a 14 karat necklace should contain 58.3% pure gold.

Just when you think that you have it all figured out, you discover that there is another word, “caret”. As I just did in the first draft of this story, the word “carat” is often misspelled as “caret”. However, that critical letter, “e” vs. “a”, changes the meaning of the resulting word to something completely different than the weight of a diamond. A “caret” is actually an editorial mark, “^”, which writers use to insert a word into a sentence. Finally, we come to the word “carrot”. It sounds just like the other three words when it is pronounced. However, this is generally one of the first words that we learn to spell, because it refers to that delicious orange tuber vegetable.

Isn’t English a grand language? No wonder non-English speakers have such a difficult time, if we have 4 words that sound alike and have such different meanings. However, when you hear us talk about “carats” here at the Crater of Diamonds State Park, you can be sure that we are talking about those lovely shiny gems rather than that rather dull vegetable.!!

March 23 - Ronney Tillis, Hector, AR. 17 pt. white; Nancy Williams, Hebron, IN, 40 pt. white; Barry Denton, Clarksville, AR, 10 pt.

March 24 - Chad Johnson, Murfreesboro, AR, 1 pt. white, 3 pt. white, 3 pt. white

March 25 - Glenn Worthington, Murfreesboro, AR, 0.5 pt white, 0.5 pt. white, 3 pt. white, 13 pt. white; Lori Lee, Quitman, AR, 55 pt. yellow

March 26 - Norm Hicks, Bentonville, AR, 29 pt. white; Kelli Henning, Greenwood, AR, 43 pt. white; Debra Langley, Pottsville, AR, 15 pt. yellow; Dean Denton, Sherwood, AR, 90 pt. white

March 28 - Larry West, Hampton, AR, 6 pt. white, 16 pt. white; Rodger Langford, Searcy, AR, 7 pt. white