The Montgomery advertiser., 1908-11-04
NEW DIAMOND FIELDS.
More Wealth Discovered in Africa
 Mining Fever Raging.

| More Wealth Discovered in Afrlen-- Mining Fever Raging.
 The XNuow desert stretching east ward from Luderitz Bay in German Southwest Africa. has become a great attraction, though a few months ago ful and depressing. Diamonds have been found there and a new mining fever is raging. Men are thronging where till now wild beasts have held undisputed sway.
 The discovery was made by the Ger mans who are building a railroad across the coastal desert and through the mountains and inland plains from Lueritz Bay to Keetmanshoop, nearly 300 miles from the Atlantic. They were digging through the sands at Col manshoop, about ten miles from the bay, to find solid basis for the tracks. when they turned up a fine diamond. Everybody said that if one diamond originated in that region there were others. Was it possible that this thirsty district was rich in the most precious of all stones? So the hunt began.
 The quest has been splendidly re- warded, says The New York Sun, and Is still in progress further and fur ther afeld The first great fact discov- cred about the new diamond field was that EeOlOKlCAly IL HtD HONuiH8 COii~ mon with the blue volcanic earth sprin- kled with diamonds that choked the anciert craters at Kimberley and has supplied the world for years with most of It's gemo The studies thus far seem to favor the view that the dia- mond~bearing area near Luderitz Bay Is Identical with the so-cailed Brazil ian formation in Brazil, where the gems are not found in the soft blue E-,,k g~. Au VNlf rock in Southwest Africa has slowly disintegrated 1t has strewn its con- tent of diamonds over the sands.
 Hundreds of men, most Of them fin the service of the Kolonial Gesell- schaft. which owns this part of the desert, have been traversing these sands in all directions, hunting for dia- monds on the surface or foot or two beneath 1t. showing sand here and there. and rakinE as gleaners do in the wheat field. The LuderitZ Bay region has never before presented so novel spec tacle. Other prospectors have not en- gagged haphazard in the search for in" dividual gems. but have been hunting for the most valuabel grounds. and with excellent success.
 At last reports, several thousands or diamonds, many of them of fine quail ity. have been collected. and this with out a particle of systematic mining. The diamond-bearing territory has heen found to extend some miles to ina north of Luderitz Bay. about fifty r,tIas south of 1t to Nautilus HiH. oho,,t ten miles from the coast Pros- nsctors supplied with horses and pro- Customs are now examining the coun- fry further inland on the supposition tbat most of the diamonds are among inc granite mountains bordering the sand waste.
 The company specially organized to carry on mining operations reports tbst +hus far forty-eight prospects worth developing have been discovered fin an area of 975 square miles and that the actual mining ground now Enowp covers about 37.000 acres. Rep" -asantatIves of the De Beers Company. xirberlev. who have visited the re- gJon say that the quality of the gems is Arst class. Reports seem to agree tbat mining development here will be carr,ed on by a close corporation. and tSat if ia now practically supplied with sIi inc skilled and unskilled labor 1t
 ft ia possible that still another re- cent discovery will help to make the hitherto despised German Southwest ASriea the peerless land of diamonds. The exact counterpart of the Kimber- iav blue earth formation has been So,,nd at Gibeon in this colony. The aarmans began to find diamonds there 4, T,,Iv last; but really the world at nrasent Is not in need of more rich diamond fields if the price of these Sems is to be maintained.