Reproduced by permission of Messrs. Myers and Rogers, 59, High Holborn, sole English agents for the Madrid publishers, Romo and Füssel. THE GREAT HOLE OF THE DE BEERS DIAMOND-MINE, KIMBERLEY, AS IT IS TO-DAY. of gold as in the country of our late enemies, over which the British Flag now proudly waves. The diamond-fields being older, as well as on account of their absolutely unique character, claim attention first. Kimberley, "where the diamonds come from," is a place which always possesses more than ordinary interest. Its longprotracted siege and gallant relief turned the eyes of the whole world to that dusty, mean-looking corner of the British Empire, a spot which is nevertheless its chief jewelshop, from which over £4,000,000 worth of gems find their way every year. But at Kimberley it is a different case altogether. It is as if the coiner of these valuable brilliants had been here tracked to his lair. When you enter the great mines there, you feel that you are in one of Nature's laboratories, where, in the beginning of time, the mighty Alchemist, in moments of relaxation from bringing down and lifting up continents, produced these glittering playthings. What is a diamond? Scientists will tell you that if you subject one to an intense. heat, your priceless stone will be resolved into nothing but a black lump of pure charcoal. But alas! these scientists fail to explain, what each one of us would like to know for his own exclusive use, how to make a satisfactory diamond out of a bit of charcoal. As a matter of fact, indeed, one or two men actually have succeeded succeeded in producing diamonds out of it, but a gem only the size of a pin's head is the usual result. The method, however, by which they achieved this forms a probable clue to the way Nature created hers at Kimberley. Man's way has THE SURFACE WORKS OF THE KIMBERLEY MINE IN 1874, SHOWING HORSE-WHINS USED FOR HAULING THE ORE UP THE WIRES. Dame Nature has got the secret in that witch's hat of hers of making them a decent size. At Kimberley there is special justification for this theory of how the diamonds came there. For there can be little doubt that what we to-day know as diamond mines our prehistoric ancestors knew as volcanoes. Though the country now lies so flat that, as Commandant Cronje put it, "there's no hill between Kimberley and Bloemfontein higher than an ant-heap," yet it is pretty evident that these mines, which are great covered at a time when things were as bad as they well could be. "It is always a feast or a fast in South Africa," is a well-known Colonial saying; and truly when things are bad there, they are very bad. Certainly nothing could have been much worse than the position of things in 1867. Merchants were failing all over the country, credit was exhausted, and agriculture at its last gasp. Then, like a happy waking from an evil dream, came the news that diamonds had been discovered. "Ex Africa semper aliquid novi" is a saying dating from the days of IN A JOHANNESBURG GOLD-MINE, EIGHT HUNDRED FEET BELOW SURFACE. circular pipes going straight down into the bowels of the earth, were once high, active craters filled with molten lava. It is in this "blue ground," as it is called, which is very similar in appearance to the lava which ran from Mont Pélee, that the diamonds are found. When the mines were first discovered, no one dreamed of the illimitable depth to which these craters seem to go. In fact, South Africa found it hard to realise the good fortune which had been suddenly flung at her feet. For the diamond-fields were dis Pliny, and "Out of Africa always something new it was felt to be indeed, when diamonds were found in such an unlikely, outlandish spot as that where Kimberley now stands. For the district is such an "abomination of desolation." A raw, red country of blank, barren earth, with nothing on its surface but tiny, withered-looking sage bushes at wide intervals, like the tufts of wool on a Hottentot's head. A land where it takes three acres to keep a sheep, and then the animal gets more exercise than food. |