THE DIAMOND QUEST

Hokitika Guardian, 24 December 1931, Page 2

THE DIAMOND QUEST

A PEN PICTURE OF KIMBERLEY Ine romantic days of the great diamond rush at Kimberley are long past and gone, but, as Lawrence G. Green tells in the “Empire Review”, in the words of the assistant geneiul manager of De Beers, “Every woman wants a- diamond —and when she bas one she wants more.” He gives some pictures of the great diamond centre as it is to-day:

Black convicts in red-striped jersey;working within roach of untold treasure. Hills of “blue ground” beside the greatest hole in the earth’s surface made by man. Tin hilts of the first adventurers in one street, modern building in the next. Barbed wire, clattering trucks, diamonds, diamonds, diamonds.... It may seem strange that criminals —some of the most hardened thieves in South Africa—should be set to work s« close to all this wealth. The fact is that the convict has not the slightest hope of passing a stolen diamond to anyone outside. There is uo temptation; The convict cares much iiiUfe i'Oi 1 tobhactio than for the diamonds uhdeh his nose. Ay ior the whites trien who deal With the gravel ill this final prObeSs, they a I'd ahioiig the oldest ahd most trusted servants of tiie edmpany; Everyone you meet iii the piiisator seems to have been there for twenty years or more, Here are men of proved honesty cheek by jowl with men spending their lives aB prisoners. The convicts are guarded, paid, fed, clothed and housed by De B«ers. In addition the company pays the Government for this convict labour,- so that the taxpayer certainly benefits from a system that has often been criticised by politicians. Wo are taken into the sorting rooms and meet the valuators, men whose job takes twenty years to learn :

A panel in a heavy dor snaps hack, a pair of eyes stare at you, the door opens. You are in the sorting rooms. Here is a long table covered with white paper and littered with diamonds of every size and shade of colour : a display of wealth that makes you grasp. A dozen young men and one or two older experts are bending over the shimmering heaps of stones. The chief diamond valuator comes forward to explain the system. Before the sorting begins; the diamonds are boiled in caustic soda to remove grease, boiled in acid to take out surface impurities, and washed in alcohol. Losses during these treatments amount to ten carats in ten thousand. Then the ouput is ‘ screened” into sizes. One of the largest I saw that day Wag a light yellow stone valued rough iy at LSCOO. At the Other end of the' scald, W6fo the tiny fragments called by such contemptuous names tis “sand,” “rtib'irßh, Mid “heart”—worth L 5 a carat, perhaps, and used largely for cutting the more valuable stones.

Like the farmer who knows his own sheep but cannot explain why, so the diamond expert will tell you the mine from which any stone you show him comes. Tt is sheer instinct—a mysterious sixth sense that is born in those who handle rough diamonds for many years. When the month’s output has been classified into dozens of sizes, shapes, colours, and cleavages, the “parcels” each of about 750 stones, are made up and delivered to the Diamond Syndicate, the famous organisation in Kimberley which buys the whole output of De Beers in advance. Then one day a man quietly hands round a tin box over the counter at the Kimberley Post Office. The box has been sealed by the diamond detective department, registered, and insured. It contains diamonds worth, perhaps, half a million pounds and the postoffice clerk takes it without a tremor and puts it in the London bag.