A TOWN BUILT ON DIAMONDS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XVIII, Issue 6063, 23 April 1881, Page 7

A TOWN BUILT ON DIAMONDS.

No town in Africa can boast such rapid growth as Kimberley, the scat of Government in Griqualand West, and the head- j quarters of the South African diamond diggings. Eleven years ago not a hut stood where now some 16,000 people, with a trade of over two millions a year, form one of the most thriving communities on the African continent. It is. now discovered that the town is built upon land which promises to be as productive of diamonds as the neighbouring "diggings" which have been the source of its wealth and the very origin of its existence. Kimberley .is identical with the "New Rush" Diamond Settlement of 1S70; and the thonsands who flocked to the locality to secure a "claim" in the valuable i'eefs, which, have been worked farther and farther to the east ot the site of the future town, were in such a hurry to seek their fortune in the diggings that they forgot to inquire whether the soil on which . they pitched their tents or erected their log-huts was not equally diamondiferous. As the wooden shanties have given place to more substantial building 3, it has been found that Kiiubeiloy itself lias been built on a diamondfield, and that the west end or residential part of the town is as full of gems as the actual diggings themselves at the eastern or or working end of the town. New claims arc being taken up in all directions, and land which was beginning to acquire considerable value as building sites has suddenly assumed fresh importance as possibly containing some new "Star of South Africa." How anauy houses will be pulled down in the search for the diamonds on which they are btiilt it would bo/; difficult; to'say. But it will be interesting t<rv?atcb. the future progress of a which owe*-ita mil it-i a-'V