NEW DIAMOND FIELD.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXII, Issue 31, 31 January 1912, Page 7

NEW DIAMOND FIELD.

FORTUNES IN A DAY

Old time New Zealanders who remember the days of the rushes at Gabriel’s'Gully, the Thames, and other diggings, will be reminded of those stirring days when only the successes were chronicled and the failures slurred over, by the news of , a rich discovery of diamonds in South Africa.

A poor man’s diamond field in these days of diamond trusts and combines to regulate production seems anomalous, and yet, according to the most recent advices, the new field at Mooifontein is on the High' \ eldt, out on the western edging of the Transvaal, north of Kimberley, and there at the present time about 9000' men are busily engaged in digging diamonds in what is practically surface wash country. By the end of the present month it is expected that fully 25,000 mon will be on the field. The wash is in some, places only nine inches to a foot deep before the digger comes upon the gravel, which in this case yields the precious carbons. As a rule the diamonds are found on the searching tables after the matrix has been puddled, washed and dried, but cases are mentioned where lucky diggers found good stones while picking in the gravel. One buyer has already spent £20,000 in buying stones on the new field for the' month of October. The sum of £30,000 was paid out for diamonds, although-fully seven-eighths of the miners had not washed up. Fortunes here, as in all mining enterprises, is capricious, as ever. At Mooifontein one man worked hard for a month, to be rewarded at last with a small stone worth locally perhaps 30s, while others were netting! £SOO a week. ,!Well-known bfiyers of the old Kimberley days, who have been driven out of active business by the combine machinery, are on the field doing business • openly and • without fear of the 1.D.8. 'Act. The interests of law and order are being looked after by a vigilence committee, of whom an Australian, “Professor” Bill Heffethian, woll-known in Johannesburg pugilistic circles, is a loading light. The labour difficulty is a big' one, and the Rand gold-min-ing companies are being faced with the fact that their Kaffir miners are being offered big inducements to leave underground work in the Rand for what is practically surface work on the new field.