White Bluffs spokesman. [volume] (White Bluffs, Wash.) 1907-1938, 1931-11-26
(Prepared py National Geographic Society.
WASHINGTON d. C.)-WNU Service

prepared by National Geographic Society.
Washington. D. C.)-WNU Service.
~ ISCOVERY Of new diamond
deposits in Tanganyika has
~ made the colony the focal
point of enthusiastic pros
pectors in search of the glittering
gems.
The African diamond industry is
only slightly more than half cen
fury old. Today the continent pro-
duces nearly nine-tenths of the
worlds supply. 1t was in 1870 that
the windy dust-swept region OF
Griqualand, South Africa, suddenly
changed from No Mans Land to Ev-
eryman's Land, when diamonds were
discovered there. Later, it was an
nexed to Cape Colony within such me
ticulously drawn boundaries that in
side one farmers house the family
dined in that colony and went to bed
in the Orange Free State.
playing jackstones with dia-
monds!" Somehow that electrifying
caption was overlooked by news re
porters in 1866, when, at Hopetown,
on the Orange river, the presence of
diamonds in South Africa was sig
nailed by child, who was discovered
playing with casually picked-up gem
weighing 21A carats.
At once the South African diamond
fever was on. Ships lost their crews,
overseas shopkeepers their clerks, po-
lice forces their hobbies" the I'M
derworld it's crooks; and perhaps the
church lost a curate, and certainly
Natal lost a budding cotton planter
he had once felt drawn to the min
istry-in the case of an invalidish
young fellow named Cecil John
Rhodes. All raked up the price to
get them to Griqualand's desert of
drought and diamonds"
Future kimberley was soon scene
of canvas tents, of wagons converted
into huts, Of prospectors sieving the
diamondiferous earth, and of "kopje-
wallopers"-those who bought other
mems finds on speculation-hurrying
to and fro among the sorting tables.
Also, there appeared the resource
full II. D. B." Gllicit diamond buyer),
who, cooperating with what might be
described as the Misunderstanding in
dustry, struggled out stones in con-
travention to the law. Slowing gems
in cigarettes, pipes and hollow shoe
heels by no means exhausted his in
genuity. The hungry-dog trick-that
is, feeding starved animal on meat
containing diamonds and subsequent
ly retrieving them by cutting him
open-was much in vogue.
Controlling the Output.
Under desert conditions, food was
often more precious than diamonds,
and baths, if you could afford that
luxury, were taken in imported soda
water. Despite prophecies Of brief
years life for Kimberley, the first
two decades showed production of
six tons of diamonds from the Griqua
country. Indeed, by 1880 the posi-
bility of South African stones swamp
ing the market was so apparent that
Rhodes and his group formed the
d-output-controlling De Beers
company.
Modern Kimberley abuts on three
mile-wde circle which contains, with
in barbed-wire barriers, mines, hous-
ing compounds" process sheds, com.
pany stores, hospitals, public baths,
in, 70 rvth iy,p
essary to the industry and it's 5000
Bantu miners.
These Bantu 'boys" are voluntary
recruits, who mine for six months
annually, returning to their kraals
with the wherewithal for meeting
taxes. for buying wives with lobola
(cattle dowry), or for less serious in
vestments, such as concertinas and
mouth organs. In "above ground
hours they are seen cooking their
food. or purchasing at cost price at
the stores, or depositing their wages
with the companys savings depart
ment. Often these deposits represent
such considerable annual aggregates
as s23O,OO0 paid in by 10000 miners
Each week in the Kimberley mines
some 10000 tons of blue ground
(hard, diamondiferous earth) are
blasted out, crushed, fed into running
water, rotated in steel drums, jiggled
along in troughs, and washed across
tablelike surfaces coated with ne.
troleum jelly. The rotary process by
centrifugal force, separates the
ground-up mass into different sized
units. The juggling process washes
away barren elements from the wa.
ter-borne concentrate" OF gravel.
like appearance; and, finally, the d.
minished residue flows across the De.
troleum surfaces, to which only the
diamonds adhere.
Not at All Exciting.
Yet diminished residue Is putting
1t but mildly, since these 10000 tons