Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1893-1920, 1899-11-20

monds. The very things that stand
for riches came TO him in the first in
stance not as q result of riches, but
their cause.
Alfred Belt was we'll educated mer-
chants son in Hamburg, destined to go
into the office, where he would learn
to check and supervise accounts relat-
ing to shipments and receipts of goods
to and from the ports of the earth; to
inherit a comfortable income from a
staid old shipping business; to cult
yate a family, n taste in music. prop
er regard for beer and go to his IA
theirs a respected but very little known
German merchant.
But about the time he was going
into business and giving up the duels
and other delights of student days
there was a sudden commerce with
the young South African town of kim
berley, which promised such develop
ments that his firm considered it wise
to send a representative into this new
marvel land to examine and see if the
resources of the country justified the
big credits the trades in all sorts of
stores and machinery We're demanding
from Hamburg merchants.
Diamonds. wealth in its most con-
centrated form. had been found in the
Orange river country in 1867, and in
1870. or possibly n year earlier. reports
came of even greater diamond mines
found in Kimberley to the northwest.
There was rush to the country
from all over South Africa and soon
from all over the world. but ii was not
until 1879 that the slow moving. con-
sentative Hamburg firm, of which the
elder Belt was a member, felt the
tremendous impetus of the new trade
strongly enough to induce them TO
send out and investigate.
That sort of work required the vigor
and health and activity and perhaps
the enthusiasm of a youngster, and so
Alfred Belt, then Do years of age, was
QUILTED with credit, with arms, with
letters of Introduction, with careful
instruction and a paternal blessing
and set sail for Cape Town, thence by
bullock team-for the railroad was not
yet built-across Cape Colony, the
Free State, Transvaal, and so into
Kimberley.
He found city OF madmen.
Thousands had rushed in, taken up
or bought land, worked the wonderful
blue or yellow clay, filed, as is pud-
ding with fruit, with the dull stones
which could be cut and polished into
the Jewels for which the world would
give fortunes.
There was chaos in the laws, chaos
in the manner OF working mines, chaos
in the trade which competition had al
ready nearly ruined. There were enor-
nous losses from thefts. The 81. D.
B." Gllicit diamond BUYING business
had grown to scandalous proportions,
and altogether the young German saw
a state of affairs which if not RENE
died would compel him to report I'M
favorably on the credit of the new dis
tricts. He was cool headed, a man of
orderly business methods by inherit
ance, and he saw that there could
very easily be too much of a good
thing, even diamonds.
He undertook then a work which is
usually attributed wholly to Cecil !
Rhodes, who did not go into the dis
trict until some years afterward, the |
work of first combining and then sys-
tematiZing the diamond mining indus |
try. This is not to say that Rhodes |
did not have large hand in the ulti-
mate close corporation result. He did, |
but young Belt was first in the field, |
first to realize that diamonds might be- |
come so cheap as TO be profitless to |
mine. first to begin the quiet buying up |
OF scattered and conflicting claims, |
first to see that there was wealth be- |
yond the dreams OF avarice only If the |
production OF diamonds should be kept |
absorbed by the nations at the old /
standard price.
The result was n combination which |
is a model of it's kind. The great De
Beers mine has for years paid 515 per
cent on its bonds and 20 per cent divi-
dends on its stock, and il is capitalized
at S40.OOO,O 900.
Then came the gold discoveries. and
the German, Belt, was the first 10 see
that vast production was possible only
If the mines were worked on the high
est scientific principles, and to accom-
plish that end he sent for American
engineers and paid them what they