Its discovery as an element was due to William Gregor in 1789 who found in the mineral ilmenite or menachinite a new earth, which was regarded as the oxide of a new metal, menachin.
Ilmenite is isomorphous with geikielite, MgTiO 3, and pyrophanite, MnTiO 3; many of the "rare minerals" - aeschynite, euxenite, polycrase, &c. - contain titanates (and also niobates).
Under all these three conditions the diamond is associated with fragments of the rocks of the country and the minerals derived from them, 'especially quartz, hornstone, jasper, the polymorphous oxide of titanium (rutile, anatase and brookite), oxides and hydrates of iron (magnetite, ilmenite, haematite, limonite), oxide of tin, iron pyrites, tourmaline, garnet, xenotime, monazite, kyanite, diaspore, sphene, topaz, and several phosphates, and also gold.
The other minerals found in the concentrates are pebbles and fragments of pyrope, zircon, cyanite, chrome-diopside, enstatite, a green pyroxene, mica, ilmenite, magnetite, chromite, hornblende, olivine, barytes, calcite and pyrites.
African locality must be mentioned.; considerable finds were reported in 1905 and 1906 from gravels at Somabula near Gwelo in Rhodesia where the diamond is associated with chrysoberyl, corundum (both sapphire and ruby), topaz, garnet, ilmenite, staurolite, rutile, with pebbles of quartz, granite, vIII.