THE DIAMOND QUEST

Evening Star, Issue 20983, 23 December 1931, Page 1

THE DIAMOND QUEST

A PEN PICTURE OF KIMBERLEY The romantic days of,the great diamond rush at Kimberley are long past and gone, but, as Lawrence G. Green tells in the ‘ Empire Review,’ in the words of the assistant general manager of Do .Beers, “Every woman wants a diamond—and when she has one she He gives some pictures, of the' great diamond centre as it is to-day:— Black convicts in red-striped jerseys working within reach of untold treasure. Hills of “ blue ground” beside the greatest hole in the earth’s surface made by man. Tin huts of the first adventurers in one street, modern buildings in the next. Barbed wire, clattering trucks, diamonds, diamonds, diamonds ... .

It may seem strange that criminals — some of the most hardened thieves in South Africa—should be set to work so dose to all this wealth. The fact is that the convict has not the sligtest hope of passing a stolen diamond to anyone outside. There is no temptation. The convict cares much more for tobacco than for the diamonds under his nose. As for the white men who deal with the gravel in this final process, they are among the oldest and most trusted servants of the company. Everyone you meet in the pulsator seems to .have been there for twenty years or more. Here are men of proved honesty cheek by jowl with men spending their lives as prisoners. The convicts are guarded, paid, fed, clothed, apd housed by De Beers. In addition, the company pays the Government for this convict labour, so that the taxpayer certainly benefits from a system that has often been criticised by politicians. AA'e are taken into the sorting rooms and meet the valuators, men whose job takes twenty years to learn. A panel in a heavy door snaps back, a pair of eyes stare at you, the door 6pens. You are in- the sorting rooms. Here is a long table covered with white paper and littered, with diamonds of every size and shade of colour; a display of wealth that makes you gasp. A dozen young men .and one or two older experts are bending over the shimmering heaps of stones. The chief diamond valuator comes forward to explain the system. . Before the sorting begins, the diamonds are boiled in caustic soda to remove grease, boiled in acid to take out surface impurities, and washed in alcohol. Losses during these treatments amount to ten carats in ten thousand. Then tho output is “ screened ”■ into sizes. One of the largest X saw that day was a light yellow stone valued roughlv at'£3,ooo. At the other end of the*Bo3*l6 were the tiny fragments called by such contemptuous names as “‘sand,” “rubbish,” and “ boart worth £5 a carat, perhaps, and used largely for ' cutting the more valuable stones. . Like a. farmer who knows his own sheep but cannot explain why, so the diamond expert will tell you the mine from which any stone _ you show • him comes. It is sheer instinct a mysterious sixth sense that is born in those who handle rough diamonds for many vears, , , , AAHien the month’s output has been classified into dozens of sizes, shapes, colours, and cleavages, the “ parcels, each of about 750 stones, are mad© up and delivered to the Diamond Syndicate, the famous .organisation in Kimberley which buys the whole output of De Boers m advance. Then one day a man quietly hands a round tm box over tho counter at the Kimberley Post Office The box has been sealed by the diamond detective department, registered, and insured. It contains diamonds worth, perhaps, half a million pounds; and the post office clerk takes it without a tremour and puts it in Die London bag.