St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1891-08-06

bic facts regarding the diamond
fields of Kimberley from an article
by Lord Randolph Churchill in the
New York Herald. 1t will repay care
full perusal.
Nothing in the internal appear
ance of Kimberley suggests either its
fame or it's wealth. A struggling
haphazard connection of small, low
dwellings constructed almost entirely
of corrugated iron or of wood, laid
out with hardly any attempt at
regularity and without the slightest
trace of municipal magnifcence, is
the home of the diamond industry.
1t seems that when the diamonds
were first discovered, some twenty
years ago, many thousands of per-
sons settled down on the spot sud
denly like a cluster of swarming bees,
and established themselves anyhow
as best they could in the most rough
and primitive fashion, never dream
but that the yield of diamonds would
be of limited extent and fshort dura-
ton, that their fortunes would be
rapidly acquired, and that they
would pass as rapidly away from
the place, having exhausted all its
wealth producing resources. The
reverse has proved to be the case.
The diamondiferous resources of
Kimberley are now known to be
practically inexhaustible, but the
amalgamati on of the mines has re-
stricted employment and checked i'm
migrat ton, and the town still pre-
serves and probably will always
preserve its transitory and rough
and ready appearance. There are,
however, a number of excellent shops,
and there are few articles of necessity,
of convenience or of luxury which
cannot here be purchased. A most
comfortable and hospitable club and
an admirably laid out and well ar
ranged race course testify to tie
thoroughly English character of the
settlement. At Kimberley the dia
mond is everything, and the source
and method of its production claim
more than a passing mention. My
first visit was to the office of the De
Beers Company, which company
the amalgamated inter
ests of the De Beers, Kimberley,
Bultfontein, Du Tots Pan and many
other smaller mines. The amalgama-
ton was the work of Mr.. Cecil
which was accomplished in the teeth
of unheard of difficulties and almost
insurmountable opposition, and
which represented the Cancellation
and unifcation of almost innumera-
BILE rival Earring and conflicting in
terests, which revealed to South
Africa that it possessed a public man
of the first order.
AN IMMENSE CONCERN.
The scale of the company's opera
lions is stupendous. On a capital
of nearly eS,OOO,OOO of debenture
and share stock it has paid since its
formation in 1888 up to March,
1900, interest at the rate of five and
one-half per cent and an annual
dividend of twenty per cent. In the
same period it has given out some
two million five hundred thousand
carats of diamonds, realizing by sale
over So, 5OO,O 900, produced by wash
ing some two million seven hundred
thousand loads of blue ground.
Each load represents three-fourths of
a ton, and costs in extracting about
eight shillings and tenpence per load,
realizing a profit of twenty to thirty
shilings per carat sold. The annual
amount of money paid away in in
terests and dividends exceed 81, 3OO,-
OOO The De Beers and the Kimber-
ley mines are probably the two big
gest holes which greedy man has
ever dug into the earth, the area of
the former at the surface being 13
acres, with a depth of $50 feet, and
the area and depth of the latter being
even greater.
EXTRACTING THE BLUE GROUND.
These mines are no longer worked
from the surface but from shafts
sunk at some distance from the origi-
nal holes, and penetrating to the
blue ground by transverse driving at
depths varying from five hundred to
twelve hundred feet. The blue
ground when extracted is carried in
small iron trucks to the floors"
E'These are made by removing the
bush and grass from a fairly level
piece of ground, the land is then
rolled and made rs hard and as
smooth as possible. These floors
are about six hundred acres in ex-
tent. They are covered with blue
ground to the depth of about foot,
which for a time remains on them
without much manipulation. The
heat of the sun and moisture, soon
have a wonderful effect apon it.
Large pieces which were as hard as
ordinary sandstone when taken
from the mine soon commence to
crumble At this stage of the work
the winnowing of the diamonds as
sumes more the nature of farming
than of mining; the ground is con-
tinually narrowed to assist pulveri-
cation by exposing the larger pieces
TO the action of the sun and rain.
The blue ground from Kimberley
mine becomes quite well pulverized
L. L