Reporter and farmer. [volume] (Webster, Day County, Dakota [S.D.]) 188?-1946, 1895-07-05
PUZZLES FROM A MINE.
THE HISTORY OF THE DIAMOND
SHROUDED IN MYSTERY.
Does Nature Scatter Her Gems
Broadcast From Some World
in Space?-South Afrfca's Mines.

Broadcast From Some World
in Space?-South Afrfca's Mines.
X S is pretty widely known, the
n diamond mines of South
~ Africa, situated chiefly in Girl
qualand West, consist Of
large depressions, filed with earth,
varying in color from yellow to gray
and blue, which is described as a tough,
dry mud of volcanic origin, sometimes
hardened into rock. This mud, or
"bire," as il is technically called, is
enclosed In a basin Of rock geologically
known as ''pipe," which issupposedt TO
be q crater of an extinct volcano, into
which the mud has been injected from
below. The four principal pipes or
mines lie within q radius of a few miles,
and are known as Kimberley, De Beers
Dutoitspan and Bultfontein. The gen.
erai features of all are alike; in each,
the upper part of the soil is yellow,
changing, at from fiftyto n hundred
feet from the surface, TO a blue ground
Of greater density. The diamonds
we're first discovered in the yellow
earth; and when the miners had
cleared that out, they imagined that
they had come to the end of the dia-
mond but it was soon found that they
we're even more abundant in the blue
ground and since that time the mines
have been carried down to 600 and 500
feet without any diminution in the
yield; on the contrary, the deeper the
| excavations are carried the better APP
| pears the output.
The ''blue," when excavated, is car
ried up and spread on the ground,
where it lies for months, to be disin-
tegrated by air and water, and is then
washed and picked over carefully by
hand tc find the diamonds. Scattered
through the blue earth are not only
diamonds, but a great variety ofcrys-
tails, agates, iron pyrites and other
substances, among which Mr.. A. A.
Anderson, the traveller, believes he
found many well-worked flint imple-
ments from different depths; and Mr..
M. E. Barber, as early as 1871, re-
ported the discovery of many worn
and perfect flint implements at Coles
berg Kopie, in diamondiferous soil,
from considerable depths, which, Il
confirmed, would add another to the
many puzzles connected with the
diamond mines, especially if the vol
canic theory is to be maintained. Mr..
Anderson, however, looks upon the
blue ground as occupying the bed of
an ancient lake, and that the dia-
monds, flint implements, fossil wood
and other substances had been brought
down by an ancient river, now repre-
sented by the Vaal, distant twelve
miles or more, the bed of which at
various points, and the rocky banks
ON both sides, are rich in diamonds,
the rock of the river bed being of the
same nature as that which encloses the
mines Biologists generally incline
to the volcanic theory, but believe
that the diamonds are of an earlier
date than the upheaval of the mud
containing them from an enormous
depth,
The greas majority OF South African
diamonds are anonymous, cloudy, yell
lowish-looking, soapy-fealing masses,
varying in size from a pins head to a
small pebble; but some are perfect
octahedrons, white and very brilliant.
These are, of course, the most valu-
able; and, singular TO relate, although
these varieties occur in all the mines,
yet the general characteristics OF the
| gems, whether dull or brilliant, white
or yellow, are sufficiently distinctive
to enable an expert to soy at a glance
from which mine a diamond has come,
the same holding good of Vaal River
gems, and of those from Jagersfontein,
in the Orange Free State.
Here, then, is another puzzle. How
is it that gems so apparently similar,
having presumably a common origin
and embedded in the same matrix,
have acquired varying characteristics I:
Dame Nature is an adept at hiding
her secrets ever from the prying eyes
of scientists, for although the diamond
mines of South Africa have been
known and worked for more than
twenty years, scarcely anything has
been added to our knowledge OF the
gem itself. The ancients called il
Adamant, and we still regard it as the
hardest of oil things; yet it is easily
smashed by q well-directed blow, can
be cut in fakes by the dishonest jewel
Ter, and is often found so cracked and
hawed as to crumble TO pieces IN.
touched; nevertheless the splintcrs
will pierce the hardest rock, and even
when reduced to the finest powder,
will cut and polish oil other gems,
Until the discovery of the South
African mines, all diamonds came from
India and Brazil but it was, of course,
the Indian mines which supplied the
Old World; and, strange as it may
SEEM, to our belief in the superiority
Of modern craftsmen, the jewelers. OF
ancient India, and possibly of Rome
also, had discovered the art of en-.
CRAVING and even Of piercing the dia-
mond, an art which our modern Jew