Prospectors were a common sight in the old west, men in ragged clothes with a burro loaded down with food, a shovel or pickaxe, and a rifle. A few were lucky and became rich, but the great majority eked out a miserable existence of hardship, disease, and malnutrition. Dolph Cannon looked like a typical prospector, but he was different. He always seemed to have plenty of money to buy his supplies of flour, lard, coffee, chewing tobacco, beans, sugar, salt, and a supply of 30-30 rifle ammunition. He was a loner and never visited the gambling halls or saloons and he seldom talked to anyone unless absolutely necessary. Naturally, people became curious about his source of income and where and how he spent his days out in the desert of northern Arizona. He was observed picking up rocks, throwing some back down, and others he would pulverize with a heavy hammer, and pick something out of the pile of dirt and put it in a bag.
Out in the desert of northern Arizona is a huge crater measuring over a mile wide and 700 feet deep This crater was formed thousands of years ago by a huge meteorite of 100 to 150 feet in diameter that slammed into the desert floor. The impact was so powerful that huge rocks the size of a truck were hurled 2 to 3 miles from the crater, and meteorite fragments have been found seven miles away. Many of these fragments were of iron and nickel composition, but when they were sawed apart, the saw blades struck something that was harder than iron; they encountered diamonds. Diamonds are usually found deep in the earth and are formed when carbon is subjected to extreme heat and pressure. Meteors contain many different minerals, more than fifty have been identified, and graphite is one of them. Graphite is a form of carbon, and it can be converted into diamonds by the great heat and pressure generated by the impact of a meteorite. Cannon evidently heard about this discovery and decided to take a look. He must have collected a lot of diamonds which he stored in caches in the caves along the sides of Diablo Canyon. No one knows where he traded these diamonds for cash, but he would walk into Richardson's trading post in Winslow, Arizona with a big wad of bills. There was a rumor that he carried around $3,000 in cash. Cannon disappeared around 1930, and it is thought that some robbers did him in. It is rumored that there are still diamonds hidden in these caves to this day.
This interesting story of a man who spent his life searching for diamonds from heaven in the northern Arizona desert is used to illustrate the adage that those who diligently seek will ultimately find. God has diamonds of wisdom and truth hidden in His Word that will be revealed to the diligent seeker. These truths, rightly understood, will lead to health, happiness, and an eternal life to come. They are like the diamonds in the desert, they are "diamonds from heaven."
