Chapter IX O’Reilly’s Account of Niekerk — Dr. Atherstone and the First Diamond — The River Diggings — Influx of Population — The Dry Diggings — Discovery of the Kimberley Mine — Early Discomforts of the Diggers — Present Condition of Kimberley
It is already a matter of history how in 1867 the first diamond was discovered in South Africa—not in the bed of a river or in the bowels of the earth, but among the playthings of a Boer’s child in a farm-house near the Orange River in the Hopetown district.
It is curious to note how—to slightly alter Pope—“great events from trivial causes spring.” In the same manner that the discovery of diamonds in Brazil and the opening up of the mines in that country virtually closed the Indian mines, so the diamond mines of Griqualand West have almost put a stop to the Brazilian trade.
There is a certain spice of romance about the story of the finding of the first diamond in South Africa, as told to me by a former patient of mine, Mr. John O’Reilly, who was the principal agent interested in the discovery, and who thus achieved for himself a historic name in connection with the development of South Africa. I took down from his own lips the following graphic account of the finding of this gem, which differs in some particulars from the version that has been frequently given:
“It is nine years ago, you know, Doctor,” he said, “since I first lit upon the diamond which led to the finding and development of this wonderful place. I was trading around as usual, never dreaming of anything particular occurring, when in October, 1867, I outspanned at a farm belonging to a Boer named Niekerk, close to the Orange River. His youngsters, when I came there, were playing with pebbles just like the ‘alleytors and commoners’ beloved by Master Bardell in Pickwick, and their father was standing alongside watching them. Seeing me looking on, he pointed out one stone prettier than the rest in the hand of a little Griqua servant boy who was minding his children, and said: ‘Dars a mooi klippe voor en borst spelt’ (there’s a pretty stone for a woman’s brooch). I had a diamond ring on my finger, and I fancied I could see some resemblance to the cut stone; and taking it from the boy I tried to scratch my initials on the window pane, as I had somewhere seen that this was one of the tests of a diamond. As soon as I found that the stone would cut glass I offered to give Niekerk, if he would allow me to take it away, one-half of what I might get for it, supposing it proved to be a diamond. This he jumped at. I at once inspanned my oxen into my wagon, and went to Hopetown, our trading centre at that time. When I got there I showed it to Solomon, the store-keeper, you must know him, who chaffed me and laughing bet me a dozen of beer that it wasn’t worth anything, and that I must be an utter idiot to bother about such a mare’s nest. From Hopetown I trekked on to Colesberg, where I took another opinion. I asked the resident magistrate this time. He wasn’t sure what it was, but advised me to send it to Capetown. I didn’t care, however, to do that, so I sent it to Grahamstown instead, where Dr. Atherstone lived, who knows all about such things. When I arrived there myself shortly afterward and saw him he said there was no doubt it was a diamond, and a good one too. Dr. Atherstone sent it to Sir Philip Wodehouse, then Governor, who bought it for £500, half of which I gave, as promised, to Niekerk.
“You ask me how Dr. Atherstone found out what it was. Well, I’ll tell you what Dr. Atherstone told me. He said he took the stone round to all the jewelers in Grahamstown, and that their files couldn’t touch it; and this with something about specific gravity I didn’t at that time understand, made him feel certain it was a diamond. The discovery created an enormous sensation? You are right, it did; and if it had not been for that little bit of luck on the Orange River, diamond digging in Africa might still be unknown, and the country would never have made the progress it has.
“When people in the colony began to think that there was a chance of more diamonds being found where this one came from, numerous parties of fortune hunters came up and began to search along the banks of the Orange River, and afterward those of the Vaal. This is the way that the first diggers came here.”
It is now seventeen years ago since Mr. Southey, then colonial secretary, laid the second diamond which had been found, on the table of the House of the Cape assembly, with the prophetic remark: “Gentlemen, this is the rock on which the future success of South Africa will be built.” There is not a man who knows this gentleman but rejoices that he still lives, ripe in years, to see the continued fulfillment of his remarkable prediction.
To cross the Orange River in those days was to go beyond the confines of civilization; but the diamond is a wonderful magnet, and as the news spread a large population of many thousands soon collected. The influx, as time went on, became of the most cosmopolitan character, North, South, East and West adding their quota, gold diggers came from the gulches of California and the creeks of Australia, “Cousin Jacks” from Cornwall, diamond buyers and speculators from London, Paris and Amsterdam, “tinkers, tailors, soldiers, sailors, ploughboys, apothecaries and thieves,” eager at all cost to embrace this chance of sudden wealth. Hardships were endured, money risked, labor spent. Some were lucky, others unlucky. The life on the river, however, is spoken of by the “old hands” as one of happy memory. I should think that thirty different sites were “rushed” by the early diggers on the Vaal,23 and although Pinel and Klipdrift were the principal, yet the banks of the river for at least seventy miles of its course were more or less prospected and worked. As I will presently show, the river diggings after the discovery of diamonds at Du Toit’s Pan and the other three mines became rapidly deserted, until at the present time there are not more than 400 diggers altogether on the banks. The diggings are all in alluvial soil. No great finds are made. The diggers, however, enjoy a healthy, happy existence, surrounded by the beauties of nature, on the banks of a broad and majestic river, which in the early days bore on its broad bosom a perfect flotilla of ferry boats plying for hire day and night, and which even now, on the birthday of our beloved queen and other public holidays, may be seen in goodly numbers, with “youth at the prow and pleasure at the helm,” a very different form of life from the dust and discomfort of the dry diggings. The returns from these diggings are at present about £50,000 per annum.
While men were busily engaged in scraping away among the pebbles of the Vaal River, prospecting was going on some twenty miles southward. The first dry diggings struck were those of Du Toit’s Pan in the middle of 1870, which were worked chiefly by the Dutch, who at that time never thought of testing the ground to a greater depth than eighteen inches or two feet, and who, when they came upon calcareous tufa, abandoned their operations. Shortly afterward, on the adjoining farm, Bulfontein, and within gunshot range of Du Toit’s Pan, diamonds were found in the very plaster which lined the walls of the homestead. Hearing this, many diggers moved over from Du Toit’s Pan and proved the diamondiferous character of this farm, the returns from which, however, were found not to be equal to those of the former place, while a month or two later another diggings named Old De Beers, and situated about a couple of miles north of Du Toit’s Pan, were also opened up. An occurrence which has proved of absorbing interest to the whole of South Africa took place about this time. In July a young man of the name of Rawstorne, who came up from Colesberg in the Cape Colony, was out shooting, and becoming somewhat weary, rested himself under the shades of a thorn bush, and scratching the ground, from, force of habit and to pass the time away, unearthed a beautiful diamond. Highly elated with his unexpected success, when he returned after his day’s amusement to his friends at Old De Beers, he told them of his luck. Next day, the news having got abroad, the locality was “rushed” and hundreds of claims pegged out. The other diggings very soon became practically deserted. Men packed up their belongings, moved their tents, and sought the “New Rush,” and, almost as if by magic, in the very place where but a few days before deer had been quietly browsing, hundreds of diggers could be seen. This famous “Kopje” is now the Kimberley mine, the richness of which it is impossible to estimate. When this mine was first opened the claims were laid out in an oblong of 30 from north to south and 28 from east to west, making in all upon the original plan 840 claims of 30 feet square (Rhynland measure), giving 961 English square feet to each claim. After the whole of the claims were measured and given out, hundreds of others were marked off and worked. Some were very soon abandoned as worthless, but others equally worthless were worked, the owners for some time hoping that a change for the better would take place, and that they would become remunerative. These extended far into the present site of the township, and much valuable time was lost in testing them.
At the present time out of the 420 claims originally worked 339⅕ only remain, and the holdings by various diggers, which at that time amounted to over 1,100, are now reduced to twenty-two companies and individuals. In the same manner Old De Beers with its 592, Du Toit’s Pan with its 1,417, and Bulfontein with its 799 claims, are represented by 6, 34, and 21 holdings respectively.24
No more wretched existence can be imagined than that endured by the early diggers. As I have already mentioned, a malarial fever raged, water was dear and bad, being carted in barrels from adjacent farms, (after even wells were dug it was sold for as much as 10s. per barrel) and so scarce that I have seen diggers wash in soda water which had been imported 700 miles from Capetown. Vegetables were also extremely dear and almost unprocurable, cauliflowers being retailed at 20s. each and cabbages at 8s., fleas and flies abounded, sand-storms blew in blind fury, and of amusements there were none; yet notwithstanding all these drawbacks, sociability ruled throughout the camps, and a helping hand was always thrown out by a lucky digger to assist his less fortunate brother.
Crime was nearly unknown. As I have mentioned elsewhere, the fields were too far inland and the cost of travel too great to induce any not honestly inclined to suffer the privations and incur the expense necessary to get there. Men would leave their tents for hours, even days, and yet find everything intact on their return, such was the quiet and order which reigned through the camp.
But as time went on, and as transport became easier, cheaper and quicker, the fields became the rendezvous of, I should say, nearly all the light-fingered gentry and desperadoes that Africa contained; and as a consequence instances of illicit diamond buying, robberies and assaults became comparatively numerous, in fact Kimberley became “civilized.”
At the present day churches and chapels, a theatre and library, a municipal council, with a mayor, a properly drilled police force, a well-kept cemetery, the electric light, a race-course and grand stand, public gardens, with tastefully laid out grounds, an admirably arranged and conducted hospital for whites and blacks, a noble court of justice, a comfortably arranged post-office, telegraphic office, and other public buildings, with last, but not least, a large railway station (which for the present is the terminus of the iron way to the interior), are manifestations of the strides which, thanks to the discovery of the diamond, civilization has made in a region which a few short years ago was simply the hunting field of the untutored savage or the nomadic boer. Barkly, which I have already mentioned, Hebron, Likatlong, Boetsap, Douglas and Campbell are the other towns of the territory, though the Langeberg and some other parts are inhabited; but the description of a late writer that “they are poor—are almost waterless—the trading and mission stations occupied as a rule by the most depraved of the human race, things whose language is a curse or a click, whose forms are inferior to those of apes, and whose doom is extinction,” is perhaps a little too severe on the aborigines of this country.
CHAPTER X.
GEOLOGY OF THE MINE AND SURROUNDINGS.—SECTION OF REEF STRATA.—SURFACE SOIL.—CALCAREOUS TUFA.—LIGHT COLORED SHALES.—BLACK CARBONIFEROUS SHALE.—LIMONITE. LANDSLIPS.—BURNING REEF.—SULPHUR VAPORS.—NATIVES AFRAID TO WORK.—COAL PLANTS.—FIRE AND CHOKE-DAMP.—IGNEOUS ROCKS.—CONTRACTION AND EXPANSION OF MINE.—STRATA OF MINE ITSELF.—RED SAND.—TUFA.—YELLOW GROUND.—BLUE GROUND.—RICH AND POOR CLAIMS.—REMARKABLE BOULDERS.—GREASY SLIPS.—MESSRS. MASKELYNE AND FLIGHT’S OBSERVATIONS.
Any work dealing with Kimberley would be incomplete that did not treat of the geology of the mine. For many years I have had the pleasure of an intimate acquaintance with Mr. George J. Lee, who has made the mineralogy of the Kimberley mine his special study, and who has been, as I have already mentioned, in Kimberley since the mine opened. To his kindness I am indebted for most of the information and for the drawings in the two following chapters.
In the first of these I propose to give an account of the geological formation, not only inside, but also as revealed by shafts sunk by the Kimberley mining board and the Central and French companies, outside the mine.
The depth of the lowest working, either within or without the mine, is now about 550 feet, whilst that of the deepest trial shaft is 620 feet.
A section of the strata in the Mining Board shaft, about 700 feet from the north side of the mine, I will now describe, which strata, I may tell my readers, vary very little at any point in the vicinity, so far at least as is shown by the examination of the other shafts.
The surface soil, which has an average depth of six feet, is a bright red ferruginous sand, composed of somewhat fine rounded grains of quartz. Next a thin layer of calcareous tufa is found in some places, but not invariably; then follows a layer of laminated trap or blue whin, evidently an intrusive rock varying in thickness and depth in different localities. This layer, which is of a very decomposed and friable character, runs down diagonally in some parts, in broad sheets through the blue shale. A very even layer of light colored shales, on an average twenty-five feet thick and very soapy to the touch, comes next. These shales are of various colors, as pale bluish white, olive, yellow, gray, etc., and the laminæ are often thickly marked with different designs formed by decomposed iron, probably pyrites. Some of these markings are very delicate and beautiful, often resembling minute ferns or algæ, and in this bed various fossils have been found.
Beneath these we have a vast layer of blackish, or neutral tint, carboniferous shale, containing four or five seams of “iron band” (bog iron ore, or limonite) from one inch to one foot in thickness. The nodules forming these “bands” are very full of cavities, and are of different colors, yellow, red, and blue, with a dull appearance and rather soft. In some specimens the colors are beautifully bright, especially in the cavities. Many fossils have been found in this shale as well at all depths.
Very many nodules of a similar shale, but harder, varying in size from an inch to one or two feet in diameter, are found imbedded in this rock, or “main reef” as the miners term it, in contradistinction to “floating reef,” an erratic rock which will be mentioned when we come to describe the diamondiferous ground. These nodules often assume the forms of casts of shells, such as those of oysters, mussels, etc., and give the idea that the main body of the reef was formed from the grinding down of an older rock, of which these nodules are the remains, an assumption which there is much further internal evidence to show in all probability to be correct.
It may be as well here to mention that all the above shales, after drying by exposure to the air, disintegrate and form a fine friable mould, or even mud after much rain has fallen. This property of becoming friable after exposure is the cause of the frequency of “land slips” falling into the mine. When a fall or slip does take place, the bulk of such mass is usually in very small pieces, not in large solid blocks, which would be the case if the reef were not of a nature so extremely rotten and easily decomposed.
When these shales have been much exposed to the weather and the rain has penetrated to some depth, or when after a fall of rain upon friable reef this is covered up by another slip, a very interesting chemical process is set up, viz.: the decomposition of the iron pyrites which is very plentifully distributed throughout the black shales. This decomposition sets up such an intense combustion that the shale débris becomes red hot. This combustion I have known to last for months, even years, and the sulphurous acid gas evolved to be so plentiful that in damp weather or before and after sunrise it could be seen for many miles. To strangers looking into the mine this “burning reef” is a very startling sight, and many visitors of a superstitious turn of mind have often precipitately left in affright, on being jokingly told by miners when the latter were questioned about the heat, smoke and pungent sulphur smells—that the “Old Gentleman” was trying to break loose, or that they had come so near the “Old Gentleman” that he was now showing his anger. This and similar stories have often sufficed to scare away simple farmers from the place.
On many parts of the reef the surface becomes heated to such an extent that articles placed upon it are almost at once destroyed. Laborers cannot work upon it at all without thick boots, and these even are destroyed in a few hours, while in many cases natives cannot by any inducement be persuaded to go near.
The sudden combustion of coal in ships is caused by the very same agents, moisture and insufficient ventilation. These set up chemical change in the iron pyrites contained in the coal, and thus cause the explosions or fires at sea of which we frequently hear. This process of nature for reducing the iron pyrites is daily being imitated by the smelters in Spain and other countries, in the preliminary process for the reduction of the sulphur in copper ores, or copper pyrites.
Some of the crystals of iron pyrites found in the reef shale are so very beautiful and perfect that they have been set in pins and other ornaments.
After the black shale reef has been ignited by the above chemical means, and has cooled, it is as red as an ordinary clay flower-pot. It may be that the promoters of a brick company that was started here for the purpose of manufacturing bricks from the shales of the Kimberley mine, took their idea from the appearance of the shales when thus burnt by nature. The bricks made from reef, after being pounded and ground by heavy steam machinery, were latterly turned out of a very good quality, but the company collapsed, probably because they could not sell enough bricks to make it pay, as the high price of fuel rendered it necessary to charge £11, 10s. per 1,000, a nearly prohibitive price for ordinary building work.25
I may here mention that several narrow streaks of coal varying from an inch up to one of eight inches in thickness, discovered in the French shaft, have been found in the black shale. This coal partakes of the nature both of anthracitic and bituminous coal, the former quality predominating, but I may say, that even if it were found in quantity, it would only be suitable for specially constructed furnaces, as it is very refractory.
No “structure” or organic remains have been discovered in any specimen of coal found in the reef of which I am aware, but many coal plants have been found in the reef itself, and specimens have been deposited in various museums.
Some years ago the olive-colored shales of the reef at the southeast of the mine very frequently cracked, making great fissures at the surface. These often remained open for months and even years, until the whole mass of reef which was thus detached from the main body, gradually slid down to a solid bearing. In doing so, when the moving mass was heavy enough, the pressure upon the particles of rock within the fissure was so great that a fine, smooth and shiny face or a light gray color was made, entering many feet, with streaks or grooves running down, glistening and lustrous, the prismatic colors of which could then be seen for weeks together if viewed from a suitable position. When seen to advantage the sight was really charming, and could never be forgotten by those who had the good fortune to view it. But the first shower of rain would disintegrate the striated face of the rock, and by this means destroy the beautiful play of light described.
In the drives and deep workings in the black shale the miners are troubled both with fire-damp and choke-damp, and many accidents, more or less serious, have occurred therefrom through their ignorance.
The black shale is water bearing, and wells sunk in it to a depth of eighty feet or more yield in most cases a good supply.
I have, I think, for the present done with the sedimentary formations, and come now to the igneous rocks below them.
The first rock under the black shale gone through, as shown in the diagram, is a light gray volcanic rock, three feet thick, with a specific gravity of 2.815. The body of the rock is of a light bluish gray color, and contains beside other minerals nodules of quartz, agates and jasper, from the size of a mustard seed to that of a walnut.
Next is found eight feet of a compact augitic or hornblendic rock, of a deeper gray color and very tough, then a seamy rock resembling basaltic trap, which was only worked to a depth of four feet in the shaft shown in the section, but is of unknown depth, for, since the Mining Board shaft was abandoned, others have been sunk, one by the French company, and another to a depth of 620 feet by the Central company, and they both are still in this same rock.
This rock contains very numerous nodules of quartz (amygdaloidal), some of which are split into flakes, and others completely fractured. Many of these are white in color and semi-opaque; others have a red skin (jasper), with transparent white quartz within, while others are entirely red. There are also many small, dead grain-like nodules of a white color, as well as ribbon and other agates. In some of the deeper portions of this rock are many small fissures, presenting somewhat the appearance of having been caused by shrinkage; these, in most cases, are distinct from each other, and are filled with white crystallized calcite, or carbonate of lime. Some of the layers of this rock vary in color, and a very compact fine-grained specimen of a reddish color contains amongst other minerals rhombic crystallized carbonate of lime, white; very brilliant iron pyrites, and a mineral looking very much like galena, but harder, of a dark steel gray color, very brilliant, and easily separated into small cubes and laminæ. This is probably specular iron ore. Another mineral has also been found in small quantities, running in veins in the stone, which upon the top appears as having been fused and run, like tin or lead. It is sectile, and of the color of pale bell metal. Very many forms of crystallized carbonate of lime, including “dog-tooth” spar of a pale yellow color are found both in the hard and soft reef, and zeolites of various colors and species, bristling upon and within cavities of the rock. The reef as a whole is fairly even all around the mine, but at the southeast it is very much contorted in the upper layers.
The wall formed by the hard rock around the mine is very compact and smooth, and runs inward in some places as much as 30° or 40°, but in others very much less. This naturally causes a cutting out of the claims or a contraction of the mine, but it is said that the blue ground of the Kimberley Central company is now gaining again, and this state of things may also take place with other claims in the Kimberley mine at different depths. (See illustration.)
I think this is a fairly full and accurate description of the geological strata outside of the Kimberley mine. I shall now pass on and give a description of the formation of the interior of the mine.
When the place was first prospected there was little to distinguish it from the surrounding country, but in the eyes of the experts of those days the slightest difference was enough to urge them to seek, “fossick,” or prospect for diamonds, that is to say, scratch or dig up the surface, sieve and sort it, and sink small trial shafts, when if diamonds or good indications were not discovered at a moderate depth, the place was abandoned, and the prospector tried or “fossicked” elsewhere. A digger would pitch upon what appeared to him to be a likely spot, when, if after passing the red sand and the lime or calcareous tufa, he came to shale, he abandoned his “prospect” as useless; but if, on the other hand, after going below the lime he came to “yellow ground,” a substance something like greenish compact wood ashes, he would continue his work for some time, in the full expectation of being rewarded in the end by a good find. But in many cases this desired result was not attained, although the digger had every encouragement to persevere by finding garnets of various kinds, the pyrope garnet, usually called a ruby, especially giving him encouragement to proceed with his work; epidote, pisolites, talc ilmenite, called by the diggers carbon, iron pyrites, ice spar, zircon, and various other minerals; still after all his perseverance, and after finding all these indications, and sinking to a depth very often of twenty or thirty feet, not a single diamond would be found, he would abandon the place, when possibly after a time it would be tried again by other parties of diggers, but with no better result.
The surface, as already stated in the description of the reef, was a red, sandy soil of an almost uniform depth of six feet, followed by a layer of calcareous tufa and one of yellow diamondiferous soil, averaging in thickness sixty-five feet.
In the red sand diamonds were frequently found, especially when it was mixed with nodules of calcareous tufa which had been thrown out by the ant-bear (Myrmecophaga jubata) in making its enormous burrow, but the distribution of the diamonds which were picked up on the surface of a large tract of country was mostly attributed to birds. Coming next to the tufa bed proper, this was of a thickness from two to eight feet, but was not a compact homogeneous mass, but composed of honeycombed nodules and masses impacted together, which required much labor to break out. Some diggers smashed up all the nodules thus broken out with sledge hammers, or the sides of their picks, and sometimes, but very rarely, they were rewarded by finding diamonds.
When the yellow ground was arrived at, which, as already stated, was of an average depth of sixty-five feet, and contained many nodules of calcareous tufa of all sizes, the color was of a pale yellowish green, but when it became dry it was somewhat of the color of bath-brick, very friable, and appeared much like fine wood-ash pressed together. It could be broken up to a fine powder with very little beating either with sticks or shovels. Most of this yellow ground was sorted dry, as washing was not practiced at the dry diggings at that time.
Some few feet, perhaps eight or ten, before the yellow ground joined the blue, a very gradual change of color took place from yellow to a lightish green, then light greenish blue, gradually darkening to blue; but still a line of demarcation of the two kinds of ground could easily be made out.
The top of the blue bed was not a level surface, but full of heavings and billows like a choppy cross sea. From the crest of a rise to the bottom of a hollow was about six feet; and the distance from crest to crest from thirty feet to sixty or more.
At this junction there was found in many instances a thin layer of porous soil holding water in the hollows or wave bottoms. This proved to be merely catch water, as after a short time it was invariably removed in the ordinary course of work, which would not have been the case had it been derived from perennial springs, yet this at the time created considerable alarm. All or most of the water that now finds its way into the mine, is through the main reef.
To turn again to the blue ground, it is mixed with small rounded stones of basalt and small angular fragments of carboniferous shale, as well as with many other minerals which I shall mention further on.
The blue ground is rather hard and tough when wet, but easily broken when it becomes dry, when the same characteristics which the black reef presents here show themselves in pulverizing when again wetted, much after the manner of quicklime, but differing from it in not developing heat. This property is made use of by the miners to release the diamonds.
Miles of country may be seen covered with blue lumps spread out to a thickness of from one to two feet, awaiting rain, or for the purpose of being watered by means of carts and water-hose, after which process it is rolled and harrowed by means similar to those used in dressing ploughed fields. The diggers used to employ gangs of natives to beat and break up this diamondiferous ground with picks and wooden beaters, yet the dusky native found time with eagle eye to watch his chance to steal. In this way it was thought the majority of the largest stones were lost to their rightful owners—but of this in another chapter.
The specific gravity of blue ground from claim No. 132 at about 170 feet from the surface was 2.268, air being 60° Fahr., and barometric pressure 25.83 inches. A cubic foot of wet blue ground would therefore weigh 141.34 lbs. The density varies slightly in different parts of the same claim and in different localities of the same mine.
The greatest depth to which the blue has been worked in the open is 420 feet, and underground by means of shafts and drives about 620 feet. The deepest trial shaft, as I have already stated, is 620 feet, and still no change is found in the character of the ground, except that it is a little denser and harder to work, and in most cases is also richer in diamonds.
It is a curious fact that when a claim was first opened out and found to be rich in diamonds, it generally remained so right down, and in like manner poor claims remained poor.
But bad or poor layers for a time changed this rule, so far as rich claims were concerned, for after some feet had been passed, say ten to thirty feet, a change for the better would invariably take place, so that in the long run a close estimate of what a claim would yield could be made. At the present time claims which were enormously rich at the surface, notably those now forming the Northeast company, were then and are now amongst the richest claims in the mine. I may also note that a belt existed around the mine adjoining the reef, from one-quarter to half a claim in width, which was invariably poor.
Poor surface claims often became changed to rich ones owing to the vicinity of a wall of floating reef, and it was often found that after months, even years, had been spent in working down a claim unprofitably, it would suddenly alter to a payable or probably a rich one, for at a varying depth alongside the floating reef, or after the reef had been removed, I have many a time known a change for the better to take place, and the owner, who had been almost reduced to the verge of bankruptcy, to be soon set upon his legs again.
Some of the claims at the west of the mine never paid the expense of working at the surface, nor even in the yellow ground below, and remain absolutely worthless to this day, although the blue ground has been reached, worked, and tested. About five claims in the very centre of the mine were proverbially poor, vast quantities of erratic boulders being mixed up with, and in some cases almost displacing, the yellow and blue ground. Some of these fragments of rock were of immense size, weighing thousands of tons, and at the same time were so solid that they had to be blasted to pieces. They consisted for the most part of dark and light colored shales, whinstone or basaltic boulders, and large masses of fine-grained micaceous sandstone, containing fragments of coal and remains of a fossil reptile. Much lignite in large stems and branches was also found amongst the boulders and in the blue. When this floating reef was removed, many feet of unprofitable blue had also to be removed before payable ground was reached, but when all the poor ground was taken away, the junction of which with the richer ground was very perceptible by a change of color, the remaining blue did not differ in average return of diamonds from the rich claims surrounding it.
Several remarkable detached boulders were found. One in No. 3 road south, of such a large size that it covered the two claims of a well-known digger named Olsen, Nos. 136 and 166. It was a pudding-stone, its chief constituent being grayish white crystals and fragments of feldspar, transparent and translucent, concreted together with carbonate of lime. This “erratic” contained also nodules of quartz, crystals of iron pyrites, and many small cavities filled with diamondiferous soil of a light brownish gray color.
Again in Nos. 8 and 9 roads south, there was an isolated basaltic boulder, nearly round, of gigantic proportions. It almost filled up claims 432 and 433 in road No. 8, and claims 462 and 463 in road No. 9, and measured in diameter 70 feet, 35 feet in the yellow ground and the same in the blue below. It was much decomposed, and large flakes or layers frequently fell away into neighboring claims, causing many lawsuits. The claim-holders burrowed round this piece of rock as long as they possibly could, but at last they had to face the expense of breaking it up and removing it. The upper portion of this stone in the yellow ground had a yellow, and the lower portion in the blue a blue tint, showing that the same cause which affected the coloring of the diamondiferous ground also affected the imbedded “erratic.”
The floating reef proper in the Kimberley mine extended from the southeast to the northwest; but there was also a large patch of floating reef running north and south in No. 8 road.
The width of this reef varied from five feet to forty feet, and the average depth was about 200 feet. It was formed of a light olive-gray colored laminated shale, with a few rounded stones and angular pieces of basaltic rock, as well as occasional fragments of fine grained sandstone. These walls of shale were for the most part compact and unbroken, with a few straggling pieces of various sizes in the immediate vicinity. This rock was totally different from any forming the walls of the mine, and no similar shale has been recognized to my knowledge in any part of the country.
At the southwest of the mine, in ground at that time belonging to Messrs. Lewis and Marks, there was a large floating reef composed of disintegrated igneous rock, resembling dolerite, which commenced near the main reef, and which jutted out to a distance of 120 feet in a northwesterly direction; this was a different rock from that forming the walls of the mine or any discoverable in the adjacent country.
Veins or seams of crystallized carbonate of lime frequently run through the blue ground in all directions, in sheets more or less broad, and varying in thickness from a mere trace to two or three inches. The calcite is covered with a coating of a grayish white substance, very soapy to the touch, resembling steatite. Some of this lime contained cavities, having a fine deposit of iron pyrites which exhibited the most brilliant iridescence conceivable. One specimen which I saw was so beautiful that it was thought even worthy of presentation to royalty, and the owner gave it to Captain Harrell (formerly Cis-Molappo commissioner) for the purpose, but through some blundering or other it never reached its destination. Eventually, I believe, Captain Harrell, with the consent of the donor, caused it to be deposited in the South Kensington Museum.
When Sir Henry Barkly was here in 1872 this was shown him, and he confessed it to be unique, in his opinion, and the prettiest specimen of the kind he had ever seen.
When a wall or block of blue ground is dressed down and left standing with such a vein—or greasy slip, as it is termed—in it, it becomes highly dangerous, as all above the vein (at times an immense mass) is liable to come down without a moment’s warning.
In 1874 an account of the chemical and optical properties of the yellow and blue ground, and the contained minerals was given in London to the members of one of the learned associations there by Prof. N. Story-Maskelyne, F. R. S., keeper, and the late Dr. W. Flight, assistant, of the mineral department, British Museum, and although rather technical in character will no doubt be interesting to those who would like to make themselves acquainted with the formation of the diamond mines. Extracts from this account will show the nature of the rock commonly but erroneously called the matrix of the diamond, and also furnish a list of minerals found in the samples furnished to the above mentioned scientists. Alluding to the yellow and blue these gentlemen say:
“Ground mass, pulverulent, soapy, light yellowish in the upper, and of an olive-green to bluish gray color in the lower regions of the excavations, is a hydrated bronzite. Through it is disseminated a considerable amount of vermiculite.... In this ground mass fragments of shale and a micaceous looking mineral—sometimes an important constituent.... It is a mineral of the vermiculite group.... Ferriferous eustatite (bronzite), prismatic crystals of a bright green color not infrequent, of the size of canary seeds—colored brilliant green by nickel.... Hornblendic mineral accidental—closely resembling smaragdite garnet. Ilmenite.26... Diallage much altered, opaline silica, sometimes resembling hornstone. Calcite. Bronzite, small bright green crystals, with something of an emerald tint, prismatic; angle 87° 20′. Hydrated bronzite; drab (or pale buff tint) much broken up, and cemented by calcite in bar-like forms, resembling feldspar.... Through it is disseminated a considerable amount of vermiculite—vaalite—surface of a fine bluish green like that of clinochlore, giving color to the mass. Hexagonal prisms 60° and 120°, resembling halite. Garnet zircon, brownish white. Hornblende crystals, with the appearance of smaragdite. Grossular garnet. Brilliant little black tourmalines. Smaragdite:—brilliant grayish green fragments of crystal, angle 125° 15′ equal to hornblende type. Olivine, steatite; variety of vermiculite, or a ferriferous eustatite or bronzite. Transparent striated mineral, of fibrous irregular outline, augitic cleavage; pale brown, in some lights a violet tinge. Between the fibres minute bars of brown vaalite, but tolerably free from calcite; occasionally associated with a yellow wax-like substance, probably opal. This striated mineral may be regarded as made up of
| Bronzite | 43.850 |
| Hydrated bronzite | 24.017 |
| Opaline silica | 30.895 |
| Alumina | .970 |
| Chromium oxide | .251 |
| ——— | |
| 99.983 |
“The base of the rock27 consists of the same ingredients as that described above, the mass of it being the hydrated bronzite. The rock is further very full of fragments of the shale, which has been altered, but still contains carbon; indeed the character of the rock is almost that of a breccia, in which these masses of shale are cemented by hydrated bronzite containing the vaalite and the bright green bronzite, with ilmenite and the other minerals associated with it.... The several minerals composing the rocks, exhibit this undoubtedly once igneous rock in the light of a bronzite rock, converted into a magnesium silicate, which has the chemical character of a hydrated bronzite.... The steatite like magma in which the other minerals and shale fragments are contained may have originated in an augitic mineral, but this is not very probable. The alterations that have ensued from the shattering of the eustatite rock, at a period subsequent to its becoming solidified, having aided in effecting the hydration that has so largely changed it from an eustatite rock into a mixture of eustatite with a hydrated eustatite, a combination which, both in its composition and structure, recalls vividly to the mind the similar mixture of the former mineral with the so-called pseudophite in which it occurs at Zdar, in Moravia.”
From the foregoing description a fair idea may be arrived at of both the formation and appearance of this mine, which may fairly lay claim to be one of the wonders of the world. In the next chapter I will give the principal theories concerning the origin of this mine.