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238 THE DIAMOND
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grew,
and the influx of men seeking for diamonds aroused the attention of the
scattered Boer farmers, who found many of these people a dangerous
nuisance. Diamonds were in the thoughts of every one. Even the Boer
farmers grew observant. New discoveries would be followed by a " rush "
of floating diggers. Disputes arose about claims and boundaries, which
the men, upon whose lands the diggers swarmed, were unable to adjust or
regulate. So troublesome were the newcomers, that the owners were glad
to dispose of their land to escape the difficulties. English capital
already had representatives upon the field. The Du Toit's Pan was sold
to an English Company for £2,600. The Bultfontein, south and a little
west of the Du Toit's Pan, was next discovered. Then the prospecting
which had been going on since December, 1870, on the Vooruitzigt farm,
resulted in the location of the Old De Beers mine, so named because
the farm was owned by a Boer of that name. On July 21, 1871, the old De
Beers New Rush on Colesburgh Kopje near by, discovered the last of the
great quartette, and these New Rush Diggings as they were called,
became the Kimberley mine, and as it proved, the richest mine of the
four.
By
this time it had come to the understanding of the miners, that these
finds back from the rivers, were not occasional scatterings of a few
diamonds in an alluvial deposit, but that there were large areas of
diamond-bearing earth quite independent of the rivers, and out of the
reach of the water-courses.
As
the gravel was picked and sieved without the aid of water, they were
called " dry diggings." In these places, the miners would handpick the
earth they had
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