Miners found a HUGE diamond in Botswana. It’s the size of a fist! 

The diamond is the second-biggest ever discovered in a mine. It’s the biggest diamond find since 1905.

Carats measure how big precious stones are. In the United States, the diamonds in most engagement rings are about one carat. This diamond is 2,492 carats! What about the biggest diamond ever mined? That was the Cullinan Diamond. It was 3,106 carats. (Jewelers later cut it into many smaller jewels.)

Botswana’s president is Mokgweetsi Masisi. He showed off the stone at a viewing ceremony. President Masisi was one of the first people to hold it. He gasped and said, “Wow.” Then he called other people over to take a closer look.

The stone doesn’t have a price tag yet. But a smaller diamond from the same mine sold for $63 million in 2016. 

A Canadian mining company found the diamond. Miners found the stone in the Karowe Mine. They located it using X-ray technology. The tech is designed to find large, valuable diamonds.

More than two-and-a-half million people live in Botswana. The southern African country mines many natural diamonds. Only Russia produces more. Some of the world’s biggest stones come from Botswana. 

How do diamonds form? Most occur deep underground. (A few come from space.) High pressure squeezes carbon atoms together tightly. Ta-da! That carbon becomes diamonds. Read more about these gems here.

People buy and sell diamonds for lots of money. They look beautiful in jewelry. They are also useful. Workers use them in drills or saws made to cut materials like glass or concrete. 

But the Bible says that something else is even better than precious stones. Read Job 28:17.

Gold and glass cannot equal it, nor can it be exchanged for jewels of fine gold. No mention shall be made of coral or of crystal; the price of wisdom is above pearls. — Job 28:17