DIAMOND MINES OF SOUTH AFRICA 251
searching
for Indian arrowheads in ploughed fields that were once the camping
grounds of the Indians, but with the discovery of the diamond pipes, it
became a known quantity, requiring the ablest financiering, the
greatest skill in business and science, but abundantly sufficient to
pay for the best, and leave an enormous margin of profit. One could
reckon for a thousand feet down in the earth, how many loads of
material there were in the chimney and how many carats of diamonds in
the loads. The cost of mining and washing was known to the fraction of
a penny, and the stones were contracted for at a fixed price long
before they were dug out of the bowels of the earth. It was no longer
an occasional find, but the exact quantity of a known average. It took
some years, however, to find this out.
The
size and outline of the various pipes differ greatly. The Premier of
the Transvaal is nearly eighty acres in extent; some are quite small.
The size of the Kim-berley mines, when in the early days they were all
staked out in claims, was reckoned by the number of claims. There were
470 in the Kimberley; 622 in the De Beers; 1,067 in the Bultfontein and
1,441 in the Dutoitspan. A rule in force in the Kimberley mines in the
early days, similar to one adopted at the wet diggings, required the
digger to work his claim uninterruptedly. If he failed to do so in
eight days, the claim could be jumped. This was enforced for about two
years. Before the process of amalgamation set in, there was a period
during which the tendency was quite the reverse. Owners of claims sold
parts of them, and there were many owners of halves, quarters, and down
to one-sixteenth of a full claim. In 1874 there were
