United States or Colombia ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
For instance, the average value of each truck load of stuff from the Bultfontein is said to be about 8s., while from the De Beer's it is 28s. or 30s. The latter mine is now worked underground, in the same way as copper and coal mines are worked in England.
To make the purchases he negotiated a loan of several million dollars through the Rothschilds, the famous bankers of London. Thus, after many years of struggle through difficulties that were seemingly superhuman, the four great mines, the De Beers, Kimberley, Dutoitspan, and Bultfontein, were merged into one great corporation.
We are, I believe, about twenty miles from Senekal, eighteen from Bethlehem, and thirty from Lindley. We call the place Bultfontein, from a big farm near, where the General has his head-quarters. Water is bad here; a thick, muddy pool, used also by cattle and horses. There has been some to-do about the sugar, and we now draw it separately ourselves, two ounces, and find it goes further.
At the Bultfontein Mine I descended to the bottom of the open workings in one of the iron buckets, used for bringing up the "blue ground" to the surface. This is rather a perilous adventure.
When the first diggers reached the bottom of the red sand, they thought no diamonds would be found in the next stratum. When, however, diamonds were found in the second stratum, the diggers had again to remove the debris, and so also when the "blue" was reached. Some of the claims in the Du Toit's Pan and Bultfontein mines were irregular in shape.
In the Orange Free States there were also two mines, viz., Jagersfontein and Koffeyfontein, the first of which produced fine white stones. The mines were all divided into claims, the greatest number of which were to be found in the Du Toit's Pan mine. Bultfontein came next. The deepest and most regularly worked was the Kimberley mine.
People flocked in by thousands from the surrounding camps. At Du Toit's Pan, Bultfontein, and De Beers claims were abandoned wholesale. As though by magic the vast plains surrounding "New Rush," as it now came to be called, became populous. A great city of tents and wagons sprang up like mushrooms in a night.
Diamonds were to be found in greater abundance below than above the limestone covering. On learning of the changed condition of affairs the deserting miners hastened back to the diggings in double-quick time. Early in 1871 diamonds were found at Bultfontein and on the De Beers farm, two miles from Dutoitspan.
This vast mine, where some thousands of workmen, white and coloured, are employed, is carried on much in the same way as the Bultfontein, as far as the different processes are concerned, of treating the material in which the diamonds are found. It is much richer, however, in "blue ground," and consequently far more valuable results are obtained from it.
At a recent meeting of the Institution of Civil Engineers, the paper read was "On the Diamond Fields and Mines of South Africa," by Mr. James N. Paxman, Asoc. M. Inst. In Griqualand there were several diamond mines, the principal of which were Kimberley, De Beer's, Du Toit's Pan, and Bultfontein.
Word Of The Day