AN AFRICAN DIAMOND MINE.

Golden Bay Argus, Volume VI, Issue 73, 21 October 1897, Page 2

AN AFRICAN DIAMOND MINE.

Apropos of Mr. Rhodes's recent remarks on the position of the African mining industry, I hi; following description will be ot interest : An African miae is about as dark, dirty, aud re-pulsive-lookiug a place as an ordiuary coalmine, and not by any means such a " hall of dazzling light " as is pictured in the imagination. At the mouth of the shaft, which is inclined, and not perpendicular, there is the " cage," which, to a stranger, looks ;>s much like a wooden coffin as anything in the world. Into this box you get as best you can, and you are then launched into darkness at an awful and perplexing speed. After you have been dropped some seven hundred feetyou are brought toa full t.top, pussibly somewhat to your satisfaction. The sensation of your descent as you lie in the coffin is not at all exhilarating.

Arrived at tbe bottom, or perhaps only nt the first level, the visitor will probably bo bewildered and confused with the noise, the smoke, the unwholesome vapour, the lurid gleams of hundreds of candles, and the uncouth aud unnatural appearance of tbe naked native labourers, who sit about like so many gnomes. Ho will see dirty Iruckj, into wihchdiity, dusky, perspiring, greasy niggers, shovel dirty earth, which is hauled to tbe surface as is coal from a mine.

It is unlikely that the visitor will see anything even to remind him of precious gems ; of diamonds not one could ho discover if he trhd. The precious gems are encased in the lumps of dirty earth he. sees sent to the surface to be exposed to the light, of day after being embedded for ages in these caverns of darkness. The spectacle is somewhat disappointing, and removes many of the romantic illusions regardi: g the appearance of a diamond mine.

The brilliant gems that adorn the fairest of the human race are won from the diitand darkness, and amid dangers to life and limb which would dismay a timorous mortal. As is now so well understood, the dirt, which is locally known as " blue ground," from its pecuiar dark blue colour, is brought from the mine to the surface, and in it the real search for the diamond takes place. This ground is pulveritcd by the action of the. amtospherc, and by machinery washed and sorted so carefully that it is a great wonder if even the tiniest little gem escapes notice.