El Paso daily herald. (El Paso, Tex.) 1881-1901, 1901-02-09
HOW DIAMONDS ARE MINED.
One Weeks "Clean-Up" at Kimberly
Amounted to 100000.

One Weeks Cleanup at hlmDerly
Amounted to s4OO. 900.
The methods of compelling mother
earth TO disgorge her hidden stores of
wealth-be 1t in the form of diamonds
gold. silver. copper or coal-appear
TO be much the same everywhere.
You first find your mine, your reef
or crater of blue clay as it is at Kim
berry. and then you pore a hole down
TO it. which you call a shaft. Some
times, as at Kimberly, you can begin
at the top. but sooner or later you
nave to resort to burrowing. latter
ally or perpendicularly. Then the
thing you are in search of" is wound
up on a pulley, over wheel such as
you see in any train journey through
the Midlands and the North of Eng
and.
The blue clay-as everyone knows
by hits time-is found in circular pits
(once craters) filled up from an I'M
known depth: they have not touched
bottom at 1000 feet. The enclosing
walls are basalt and then a layer of
shale is superpoSed. In the open.
of through shafts. the clay is blasted
and carried on trucks by endless wires
wires to the floors" The trans
rur on double lines. one set OF trucks
carrying the clay, the other return
ing empty. The floors constitute
one of the most interesting features
of the place The earth which con-
tains the diamonds becoms very fri
able when exposed to sun and air,
and mbles like loan. The harder
Gus pressure. has to be pulverized
by crushing Thousands of acres are
a much disguised blessing of South
Africa-and there hidden in the moul-
dering earth, are hundreds of thou
sands of pounds of precious stones.
and are picked up by the boys" and
spite of the necessarily stringent l.
ID. B. laws, it is difficnlt to believe
house.
When sunshine and atmosphere
have done their work the decompoSed
clay is taken back from the floors
and committed to the pulsators. The
matter is shot into receivers and pass
es down the pulsator, graduated
plane of metal which, as the name
implies, is shaken by machinery lat
orally, as a man shakes sieve in
his hand. The different steps Of the
pulsator are covered with grease. to
which the diamonds-at least, all of
any Size-adhere as the broken clay
rushes over mingled with a stream of !
water. The top step generally man
ages to catch the larger stones. and |
very few escape to the lowest grade. |
The refuse. however, is all careful !
1y hand-sorted by natives, whose nat
ural quickness of eye and deftless of |
finger which have been improved by |
long practice. Many of the hands so
employed are convicts, hired by the |
government to the company. These |
victims of civiliZation-mosto of them
are guileless of any criminal appear
L.. H.
dull monotony of prison labor. The
sight of these convicts engaged in
sorting out minute gems from the dross
might suggest many reflections The
is the most striking: at one
end of the scale diamonds represent
ing the highest luxury of civilization,
II the other the native to whom Euro
,ean culture means the magistrate and
he politician. However. if the ma
i've criminal moraliZes-which / am
sure that, as a rule. he is far too SEN
;ibIe to do-he can chuckls at the idea
hat eoch stone he extracts may easily 4
prove an Incentive to his fellows on
| higher plane to go and do likewise.
The sticky matter. holding little but
he gems. is thoroughly washed out.
md the deposit is ready for the sorter. 6
Diamonds are by no means unlovely in !
heir uncut condition, and there is no q
the slightly greasy feeling of I
he real gem. due, 1 am told, to its in 8
omparabl hardness. The stones
re then inspected and weighed. and 9.
icketed according to their value in lit
lie heaps on counter of the sorting
IONS. T-us. the first heap of a weeks
cleanup" will contain. perhaps doz- q
n large diamonds, perfect in shape
nd color and without a flaw; they a
lay be of any value from G200 to a
1000. Then come smaller ones of a
lie same spotless character. next in o,
alue are the large yellow stones:
len the f1awed whites, and so on -
own to the heaps of tiny gems like u
'arse sugar, white and brown
oughly there were, suppose. some Dl
10000 worth Oh the counter, repre- la
nting the output of seven days st
ne company does not. of course. cut ge
) own diamonds-that is a special til
dustry of Amsterdam-nor do they n,
II them directly to the diamond mer-
ants. A syndicate contracts to take l.,
G whole product of the mines at a NJ
ed price-so much a karat-and as 81
ing to the war and other causes, IN
amends have been very very dear he
ely; the syndicate must have made W
'ge profits. a,
sh
The Yellow Peril. W
W. u