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Ch. 10: Diamond Mining & Meteorites

Ch. 9: Diamond Mines of Brazil Page of 448 Ch. 10: Diamond Mining & Meteorites Text size:minus plus Restore normal size   Mail page  Print this page
CHAPTER X
DIAMOND MINING IN AUSTRALIA, BORNEO, CHINA,
GUIANA, RUSSIA, AND THE UNITED STATES,
AND DIAMONDS FOUND IN
METEORITES
I N the middle eighties, a Mr. Gilkes, while prospect­ing for gold in the interior of British Guiana, found a diamond. At that time the enormous development of the diamond mines of Africa from the chance finding of a single stone, had already attracted universal attention and prospectors were not slow to follow any similar lead. The gold prospector at once became a diamond seeker, and in a short time obtained quite a number of small stones. No large stone or great quantity was ob­tained, and probably for that reason systematic digging with the assistance of capital was not begun until early in 1900, when " the British Guiana Diamond Syndicate " obtained a concession of 2000 acres and commenced op­erations on the Putareng Creek, a tributary of the Maza-runi river. Later the Mazaruni Company obtained a concession of 5,858 acres in the district and is still in oper­ation. Since then, a number of small companies, one of them American, operating on Nimbo Para creek, Maza­runi river, have been formed for the purpose of digging for diamonds in that district. There were 27 companies working in these fields in 1903, only 14 of whom re­ported over 100 stones.
The fields lie north of the Cordilleras of Parima, which
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Ch. 9: Diamond Mines of Brazil Page of 448 Ch. 10: Diamond Mining & Meteorites
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