DIAMOND PRODUCTION IN SOUTH AFRICA IS EXPENSIVE BUSINESS

Manawatu Times, Volume LIV, Issue 6814, 18 January 1929, Page 2

DIAMOND PRODUCTION IN SOUTH AFRICA IS EXPENSIVE BUSINESS

The diamond deposits near tho' surface in most regions of South Africa have long since been exhausted. It bas been necessary to excavate at enormous expense deep into the earth to reach the rich diamond-bearing strata. The mining operations in the Pretoria region, as a result, are by far the most elaborate of their kind to be found anywhere in the world. As a result of a halfcentury and more of labour, the excavations of the diamond mines to-day resemble the natural canyons of Colorado. The present floors of these mines are hundreds of feet below the surface, and the mining operations are still in active progress delving still deeper into the earth. The construction camps at the bottom of the pits are almost lost to sight. Tho diamond-bearing earth now mined at these depths must be raised to the surface by elaborate incline railways and hoisting devices. It is obvious that the expense of mining diamonds mounts rapidly when the work is carried out under such conditions. The Premier Diamond Mine, near Pretoria, from its opening n 1896 to a recent date, has yielded 116,445,550 loads of bluo clay, each of 16 cubic feet, from which 36,217,114 carats of diamonds have been recovered. The value of these diamonds has been over £30,000,000. Great as has been this output, the enormous increase in the demand for diamonds, especially in recent years, in America, has absorbed it readily. Some Idea of the capacity for the absorbtion of the diamond output may be gained from the fact that at the present time the average value of diamonds per family is more than.£4o, and America’s imports of these precious stones are steadily from year to yea*.