SOUTH AFRICAN DIAMOND FIELDS.

Globe, Volume XXII, Issue 1955, 31 May 1880, Page 2

SOUTH AFRICAN DIAMOND FIELDS.

The following is from the “ Natal Mercury”: —From the Diamond Fields we regret to hear that three waggons have been washed down the Vaal river at Barkly. The Modder river had been very high, and quantities of fish had been caught in the mnd by the overflow. The mine at Dutoitspan has been sold for £6500, the highest price yet realised. The mine at Kimberley is now worked to the depth of 291 feet. The administrator is taking steps to supply the mine with native labour. The mine at Kimberley does not probably cover more than fifty or sixty acres of superficial area, snd yet that small plot is assessed at a value of £1 650,000. The estimate is of course more or 1- ss conjectural, as no one can say how deep ia the bowels of the earth the biw. h of the earth the ‘ diatuondiferous ’ deposit may sink. 8o far there is no evidence of failing fi ids. 9he fact that a claim has sold for £6500 is sufficient proof of that, and this, although the mine has all but touched a depth of 300 ft. Diamond digging, as far as Kimberly ia concerned, is a phrase of the past, the process being in every sense of the term a mining operation. Next to diamonds, potatoes seem to he the dearest thing on the Fields, £6 10s having been given for a bag. It might be worth while to cultivate that sort of precious commodity along the fertile hanks of the Vaal.”