RICH NEW DIAMOND FIELD HAS STRANGE HISTORY

Manawatu Times, Volume LIV, Issue 6808, 11 January 1929, Page 3

RICH NEW DIAMOND FIELD HAS STRANGE HISTORY

TRAGIC DEATH OF DISCOVERER. It is a strange freak of fortune that the immensely rich new diamond field now being worked in Namaqualand by the South. African Government with such profit, and where the present strained situation exists, should have been discovered nearly ten years ago by one of the ablest and most daring explorers and adventurers of our Tace. The man in question was F. C. Cornell, whose career was worthy of romance, stated the ‘Daily Mail” on November 19th. . He loved to prospect and hunt m the most unfrequented regions of the world. One of his favourite haunts was the country on both sides of the lower Orange river, which he believed to be extraordinarily rich in precious stones. The casual traveller regards it as among the dreariest of deserts. But it was here that in 1920 Cornell came upon the new diamond field on one of his many wanderings. And it was in the same region, not far from the field, that he found on certain of the terraces, under the barren cliffs on. the lower Orange river, equally extraordinary wealth, of semiprecious stones. Diamond-cutting Plan. All these facts ho stated to a friend in London in February, 1921, when he was in Britain to make arrangements for the exploitation of his discoveries. Ho intended to cut tho semi-precious stones on the spot, in South Africa, with the aid of Kaffir labour, as he was convinced it could be done. He had with him many specimens of these semi-precious stones of extreme beauty, blue, green, red, topaz-yellow, brown. His one fear was that unless the supply was placed very carefully on the market the price would drop violently. Wealth beyond the dreams if imagination was within his grasp when, just as he was about to complete arrangements, death intervened. On March sth., 1921, ho was taken by a friend in a side-car through London; the driver stopped suddenly and Cornell was thrown out violently on his head. He died twenty-four hours later. _ .

He served in the Boer War and in the Great War—in the latter as Intelligence officer under Botha in German South-West Africa.