WHERE THE DIAMONDS COME FROM.

Otago Witness, Issue 2356, 20 April 1899, Page 61

WHERE THE DIAMONDS COME FROM.

(From a description of the " Diamond Mines and Inhabitants of Kimberley,' ' by Robert Sillard, in the English Illustrated Magazine.) Kimberley is 670 miles by train from Capetown, and as dreary a thirty hours' journey as one could imagine. It is 400 ft above sea level, and as a consequence is what is considered fairly well situated for a city. Ths streets are mostly well planned, and there are quite a number of good shops. The houses are not like those at homo ; very few of them are more than one storey high, and are all rooted with iron. livery house has a verandah to protect it from the heat, and it is there that all free time is spent. Half oi the entire population is coloured, and these live in what are called locations or villages outside the town, where they must remain during the night. Any coloured gc-ritlcnicin or lady found away from his or her "location" aiter 9 o'clock p.m. is forthwith arretted and accommodated with lodgings for the night, and the following mornin^ is introduced to the magistrate, and without fail gets a month in prison with hard labcur. ""During the day time these coloured folk cannot use the footpaths in the town, they must keep to the roadway and leave the sidewalk free for their whito brothers and sisters. It car> be gathered from this " arrangement " that a darkies life — no more than a policeman's — is not a very happy one. The sabla portion of the population is made up of almost every nationality — Kaffirs, Hottentots, Zulus, Indians, with any number of Chinese, Japanese, as well as Moors, Arabians, and Persians, and each one. dresses (and undresses) after the fashion of his own country, so. that a motley crowd is constantly passing to and fro. . . .

Should the diamonds fail, Kimberley will be added to the list of lost cities ; but experts say that the supply of the precious stones is inexhaustible. So far, at any rate. 10 tons weight h.ive been found, representing a value of about £80,000,000 sterling. It reads like romance to say that De Beers Company exported ovci £2,000,000 worth last year. The diggings aro of two kinds — the wet and the dry. At tho river diggings the diamonds are found among tho pebbles along the bank. The soil is dug up and carried in buckets to the river, and there washed in boxes of zinc pierced with holes. This is called a " cradle." It is rocked to and fro undei a stream of water. When all the earth is washed, the boxes are examined, and in a " fair claim " about one diamond will be found in every 10 bucket fuls of earth. But the " dry diggings " are the most important mines now, and are several hundred feet deep. They were formerly known as the Dv Toits Pan, Bulfcfontcin, De Beers, and Kimberley Central. They are now amalgamated into one huge company, known as the De Beers Consolidated Company, with a share capital of many million pcunds sterling. In working tho old open mines, the trolley was rolled on wire cables a sloping distance of 1000 ft, and a perpendiculai depth of 500 ft. The open mines are not worked now. They are fenced in, and are tremendous- chasms. In these old diggings the grit was first riddled through a coarse sieve, then through a finei one, and so on, until the whole had been carefully examined. Now, however, most of the diamonds are obtained from mines more than a thousand feet deep. They are found in a serpentinous breccia, known as" blue ground." This is first .pulverised and crumbled, and then passed through rotary machines, where tlit lighter particles are washed away and the heavier remain. There are over 12,000 coloured men employed in the various mines, with a staff of nearly 3000 white men engaged as officers, tradesmen, engineers, ftc. The work goes on day and night, Sundays included, without intermission. Two thousand men are employed below for eight hours ut a time. The remainder live on the surface, and while awaiting their turn are enclosed in what is called the compound, resembling a vast barrack square, and surrounded on the inside with sheds, where the coloured folk sleep on the bare ground. The cooking is tarried on by each one in front of his .shed in the open air. Most of them have on as little clothing as one likes to imagine. They are entirely cut off from the outer world' for three months, then any one who wishes- to leave hi& work (except the convicts) is kept in a room by himsolf for a week, where all his clothing is taken from him, and he is compelled to take medicine of no delicate nature, Jest he _may have- swallowed some of the coveted gems. That such precaution r. necessary can be gathered from the fact thai, some time ago one fellow had a soro leg and had it well bandaged just as he was leaving. The defective limb was examined, and in a self-inflicted wound were found nine small diamonds, value for about £60.

—In Germany only 18 per cent, of deaf mutes grow up without education. In Franco tlib percentage is 40, in England 43, in Austria 70, in. Russia 90,