THENEWYORKER,FEBRUARY3, 2020 35
tains all the diamond jewels ever sold.
Although the diamond market appears
to be a paradox—an abundant resource
that relies on the illusion of scarcity—
it depends on a deep truth about human
desire. We prize diamonds because oth-
ers prize them.
Even so, diamond prices seem
bafflingly high. Compare diamonds
with an element like rhodium. Rho-
dium, which has a silvery sheen, has
manifold uses in metallurgy, forms a
key component in catalytic converters,
and is considered the most expensive
precious metal. An ounce costs about
ten thousand dollars. A clear, internally
flawless rough diamond of the same
weight—a hundred and forty-two car-
ats—would cost a jeweller about six
million dollars. The Ayer copywriters
worked dark magic.
D
iamonds may not be as scarce as
the industry would have people
believe, but very large rough diamonds
are vanishingly rare—except at one
mine. Lucara has operated at Karowe
for seven years, and during that time
the firm has discovered an astonishing
number of big stones, including three
of the ten largest rough diamonds in
history, and fifteen stones weighing
more than three hundred carats. Since
the discovery of the Cullinan, in 1905,
Karowe is the only place where stones
heavier than a thousand carats have
been found. In 2015, Lucara recovered
a near-pristine white diamond of eleven
hundred and nine carats, which became
known as the Lesedi La Rona—“Our
Light,” in Setswana. The big black-
covered diamond found by Otsogile
Metseyabeng last April is now known
as the Sewelô, which means “A Rare
Find.” The price of a diamond increases
exponentially as its weight rises, be-
cause of the scarcity of big stones. Lu-
cara’s streak has made the company
profitable at a time when many pro-
ducers have struggled. It has also re-
shaped the diamond industry.
Lucara was founded in 2009 by two
Canadian mining executives, Eira
Thomas and her friend Catherine
McLeod-Seltzer, together with the
Swedish-Canadian mining billionaire
Lukas Lundin, who serves as the firm’s
chairman. At the time, both women
were already thriving in a male-dom-
inated sector. McLeod-Seltzer was one
of the first female C.E.O.s in the min-
ing industry. She had created and led
several successful gold- and copper-
mining ventures, particularly in South
America, and was known for her ex-
pertise in raising funds. The Northern
Miner, a trade magazine, named her a
1999 “Mining Man of the Year,” appar-
ently without irony. Lucara is made in
the image of its founders: most of its
leadership team, and more than half
its executives, in Botswana and outside
the country, are women.
Eira Thomas, who is now Lucara’s
C.E.O., has been prospecting since she
was a child. Now fifty-one years old,
with reddish hair, catlike features, and
blue eyes, she has the sort of calm de-
meanor that one associates with ocean-
going naval captains. When we met at
a hotel in the Mayfair district of Lon-
don, in August, she wore ornate dia-
mond rings and earrings made from
stones discovered at her mines, but I
sensed that she would have been just
as happy decked head to toe in water-
proof gear, hiking through the tundra.
Her father, Grenville Thomas, was
born in Swansea, Wales, the son of a
steelworker. He became a laborer in a
Welsh coal mine when he was sixteen
years old. He retrained as an engineer,
and then, at twenty-three, immigrated
to Canada, where he worked in nickel
and gold mines. In 1965, Gren, as ev-
eryone called him, was asked to join a
team prospecting in the Arctic. He
didn’t know much about geology, but
he instantly loved the prospector’s life:
canoes, caribous, wolves.
In the seventies, Gren prospected
“What have you done with the original hardwood floors?”
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