The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1899-10-31

Row the Diamond Deposits Were
First Discovered and the Industry
caUsaIfdutad


interest has been martial; for Kimberley,
with Cecil Rhodes, the Grand Young Man
of Africa has been reported beset by fierce
foes, eager according to some accounts,
no less for the blood of Rhodes than To-
the rich booty of the mines.
Diamonds are found in many places but
only Al Kimberley. in the karoo Desert,
are there diamond mines, so far as any one
knows. The meaning of this statement
may not be very plain to the gene al read
err its bearing is upon the question, as TO
the exact solution Of which biologists are
not yet agreed: How did the diamonds
get there? In other places-in the hills
of Orissna and GolConda-the pebbles are
found, like other pebbles, in alluvial soil,
into which they, like other pebb es, have
found their way in the course of ages up
on ages, through numberless disintegra-
lions of primary rocks and shifting of soil
from various natural causes In the KIM
berley mines the world mas, so far as is
known, its only storehouse Of damon $
in the original matriX in which they we e
formed by the almost inconceivably high
tempera ture and compression of volcanic
action. Whether this substance Is found In
the Kimberley mines just where 1t was
originally formed or whether the Vo canic
action forced it out of that position Is the
question which has interest ed geo,ogis
and the latter solution appears 10 be that
In favor since DR.. William Crookes, f. r.
s. three years ago made his demOustra-
ton before the Royal institute. Accord
ing 20 DR., Crookes the African diamond
were forced up to or near 10
the surface from great depths through the
pipes" or natural vents, with the blue
ground from which the Kimberley min
| ers extract them,
Until 1867 no one seems to have sus-
pected anything of all this great wealth
| in the tree3ess, trackless, elevated desert
| of Colesberg IIopje, just outside the west
| ern border of he orange Free State. That
wilderness had been given over to the
| Griquas. a tribe or nation or people Of
mixed Dutch and Kafiir origin, who had
/ been as much Disguised as the Beers
| themselves with the British abolition of
their slaveholding privileges. Then the
| story goes. one John O'Reilly bought of
! Schalk van Niekrk q stone which Schak
had obtained from a }ttie Griqua boy.
| whom he had seen playing with It, Iiav-
ing got 1860 for this curioVsity, Van Me
kirk made bold to pay as high as El00 to a
| Hottentot for arother specimen of the
same kind but larger, and this one he sold
| to Lilenfeld & Co. of Cape Town for
| f0 600.
! And so the attention Of the commercially
| enterprising was attracted to the Coles
! berg Adventures fioeked thither from
! all paris of the world. and the great rush
which set in within year or two after
| Van Niekrk's discovery eliminated in
! 1870 and 1871 in the opening of four great
| mines such as the world had until then
! neither seen nor heard Of
One of the first considerable results of
! this discovery of wealth was an increase
| of British territory West Griqualand,
! which had been for nearly forty years an
| independent state, was ceded by Chief
| Waterboer and became the West Griqua-
| land territory of Cape Colony. A city
sprung up about the diamond mines, and
was called Kimberley, in honor of the
| colonial secretary.
! But in 1871, when Kimberley was formal
" founded. the methods of finding the dia-
! monds in the agricultuTally wor thless, but
| minerally rich yellow ground" were sim
| pie and Intellectual compared with those
| now in use The miners simply dug and
! sfted each man for himself, or for self
| and partner This was not only slow, but
! as they came to the blue ground fur
| Their down the miners found il impractica-
| bic The yellow ground was gravelly
soil. but this "bue ground" was a very
! good imitation OF solid rock. IT is said
that the difficulty of treating luz
| ground" was solved by the canny. patient
! industry of an old Boer, who was in 70
/ hurry about his diamond mining. He soak
! ed his blue ground" and waited, and in
| a little time il was seen that the mineral
! Welded TO the solvent action of water.
| After that the present system of kimber-
| lev diamond mining was established in
rrincinle-the system of washing out the
| earth and sitting. The apparatus has be-
come more complicated and the operation
more rapid, more thorough and less eX-
nensive when done on a large scale, but
the principle is the same.
tn most striking feature in any picture
az The Kimberley diamond mines is what
looks like a net work of cordage running
from side TO side of the v0st holes i'm the
| Ground This network is formed Of the
wires upon which the trucks of earth are
hauled TO the washing sheds The haul
ing. done in primitive days by natives, was
afterward done by means OF morse
| yvhins" or large horizontal wheels round
which endless wires are passed. turned by
| horses In this way a large NUMBER oi
trucks can be brought in at the same
time Since then various improvements
| on the "horse whin' have come into use
| Moreover, it has been found that "oper
manufacturing the ground away in
Greet pits. like common stone quarries-is
unavoidable on a large scale. the earth
and moisture continually fan into the
workings Hence deep covered shafts anc
galleries have been substituted.
In washing the precious blue ground
the greatest care of course, has to be eX-
ercised to guard against washing away
diamonds. Not only is this prevented
though not invariably by every mechan
| ical means, but this part of the work, like
| every other, is constantly watched by re-
sponsible overseers. The sitting and sort
ing of the earth is a still more critical op'
Grafton, and the final work of picking on
diamonds from the mass of pebbles calls
for skilled, responsible and proportional
Iy highly paid labor.
Ever since the opening Of the mines thF
miners and the magistrates have beer
Obliged 20 keep the sharpest imagina be
eve on two classes of offenders-the native
diamond thief and the white man who's
business at Kimberley was 10 buy stoler
diamonds from native workmen. 1t is SAID
that many Kafiir chiefs whose subject!
went to Kimberley to work in the mines
have made 1t a capital offense for am
| such to return 10 his tribe without a
least one rough diamond as an offering C
| his hereditary ruler. In addition to thi.
inducement to theft there has always beer
| the enterprising white man already men
toned, known at the Cape as an Il. d. b. >
("flncit diamond buyerO. 90 prevent th'
natives in the mines from yielding to thes'