Value of huge Botswana diamond still unknown
Lucara mining firm attracts many inquiries to buy1,111-carat gem but says stone not yet valued as it’s too big for onsiteequipment and must be flown to Antwerp
博茨瓦纳的钻石矿里挖出一块超级大的钻石！价值难以估量！
文章里的斜体字为特殊词，可不需明确知道其含义。带有下划线的是值得记忆的常用英语词。大家可以利用网页微信转到电脑或ipad上阅读文章，更容易记忆。The Canadian mining company which this week unearthed the world’s largest diamond in more than a century says it cannot put a value on the 222g (7.8oz) stone.
The 1,111-carat gem was hauled from an open pit mine in central Botswana, by the Lucara Diamond Corporation, a Vancouver based firm.
· haul 费力地把…拖出来；拖运（类似于东北话的“hao”出来）· open pit mine 露天矿坑
William Lamb, the company’s chief executive, said Lucara had already been inundated with inquiries from potential buyers, but said it was impossible to price the diamond at this stage. The stone, the second largest ever recovered, was too large to fit inside the company’s own scanner, so it was be transported to Antwerp for closer inspection.
· chief executive 首席运营官（CEO）· be inundated with/by 被…所淹没· the second largest ever recovered 两个逗号之间的内容为插入语，对这个stone进行补充说明· fit 这是一个含义很复杂的小词，自行去查字典吧The company has yet to decide how to sell the stone, but it is likely to be auctioned once it has been prepared for sale. “People are still reeling from the fact that it’s over 1,000 carats,” Lamb said on Thursday.The company’s share price rose 32% on the back of the news, adding about $150m to its market value.The Lucara company had used an x-ray processing facility to reduce damage while recovering large diamonds. Had the Karowe mine – which is about 300 miles north of Botswana’s capital, Gaborone – used older equipment, the diamond might have been smashed to pieces along with the rubble removed from the pit. “It would have gone to the pebble crusher and it would have been destroyed,” said Lamb.
The diamond measures 6.5cm by 5.6cm by 4cm, and is second in size only to the 3,106-carat Cullinan diamond, which was unearthed near Pretoria, South Africa, in 1905. The carat calibration is a measure of how heavy the diamond is, one carat being equal to 200mg.
· measure 这里作动词，(长度、宽度、数量的) 数值为· be second in…only to 在…方面仅次于
The stone has yet to be evaluated, but Kieron Hodgson, a commodities and mining analyst, said it had “the potential to be one very expensive diamond”. He told AFP: “Valuation will depend on potential inclusions, how it would behave in cutting, optimal shape as well as final colour. All these things will need to be evaluated prior to bidding.”
· have the potential to 有潜力……The stone is known as a type IIa diamond. These are clear and almost pure carbon diamonds, with none of the nitrogen that gives some diamonds a yellow hue.
The Koh-i-Noor (Urdu for Mountain of Light), the most famous diamond in the British crown jewels, is a type IIa diamond. Another in the collection at the Tower of London is the First Star of Africa, which was cut from the Cullinan diamond and now adorns the royal sceptre.In April, a flawless 100-carat emerald-cut diamond sold for $22m within three seconds at an auction arranged by Sothebys in New York. It took a year to be cut from an original stone that weighed more than 200 carats when it was mined by De Beers in South Africa.· flawless 完美的；无瑕疵的（flaw 瑕疵；缺陷）· original stone 原石（original 最初的）Putting a price on Lucara’s diamond is difficult because several factors come into play. While the value of diamonds shoots up with size, the number of potential buyers falls. The buyer of the Lucara diamond could be a syndicate.· shoot up 暴涨；迅速成长；（植物）发芽Botswana is the world’s second biggest diamond producer, and Lucara said the gem was the largest ever to be recovered in the country. In a statement, Lamb called the latest discovery historic, adding: “The significance of the recovery of a gem-quality stone larger than 1,000 carats, the largest for more than a century … cannot be overstated.”· historic 历史性的（historical 有关历史的）· cannot be overstated 怎么强调都不过分
On Thursday, the company announced the recovery of two more large diamonds from the same mine, estimated at 813 and 374 carats. Lamb said it was an amazing week for the company but added that it “would not be the best strategy to put all three on the market right away”.大家读完了么？完整读完的人恭喜你，你已经超过了50%的童鞋！
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