SOUTH AFRICAN DIAMOND

Manawatu Herald, Volume II, Issue 85, 18 June 1880, Page 3

SOUTH AFRICAN DIAMOND

The following is from the Natal Mercury :-From the Diamond Fields we. regret to hear that three "waggons have been washed down the Vaal river at Barkly. The Modder river had been very high, and quantities of fisH ibad been caught in the mud by the overflow. Uhe mine at Dutoitspan has been sold for £6500, the highest price yet released. Thfe mine at Kimberley is now worked to the depth of 291 feet. The administrator is taking steps to supply the .mine with native labour. The mine at Kimberley does not probably cover more than fifty or sixty- acres of superficial aroa, and yet that small plot is assessed at a value of £1,650,000. The estimate vis of course more or less conjectural, as no one can say how deep in the bowels of the earth the • diamond} iferons ' deposit may sink. So far there is no evidence of failing finds. The fact that a claim has sold for £6500 is.sufficient proof of that, and this-, although the mine has all but touched a depth of 300 ft. Diamond digging, as far aB Kimberley is concerned, is a phrase of the past, the process being in every sense of the term a mining operation. Next to diamonds, potatoes seem to be the* dearest thing on the Fields, £6 10s having been given for a bag. It might be worth while to cultivate that sort of precious commodity along the : fertile banks of the Vaal "