296 THE DIAMOND
Mining
operations are being carried on at a greater depth in the Kimberley
than in any of the other mines. In 1902 the main shaft was down 2,233
feet, and actual work in the blue was done on 9 levels 40 feet apart.
In 1904, the main shaft was sunk 60 feet further to 2,599 feet. The
lowest working level in the early part of 1907 was at 2,520 feet.
Gardner
F. Williams, in " The Diamond Mines of South Africa," says that when
the claims on these four mines were consolidated by purchase, the
open-mine surface was figured to be: Kimberley, 33 acres; De Beers, 22
acres; Dutoitspan, 45 acres; Bultfontein, 36 acres.
The Jagersfontein.
This
mine is in the Orange River Colony, formerly the Orange Free State,
near Fauresmith and the Riet river, and about eighty miles south and a
little east of Kimberley. It was discovered about the same time as the
Kimberley mines, and a controlling interest in it was secured by the De
Beers Consolidated Mines shortly after the establishment of that
company. Jagersfontein was owned by a widow named Visser and the farm
was worked by her overseer, De Klerk. He, noticing garnets in the dry
bed of a spruit, and having heard that the Vaal diggers considered them
an indication of diamonds, sieved some of the gravel and in August,
1870, found a diamond weighing fifty carats. This led to the discovery
of the Jagersfontein mine by the diggers who flocked there and worked
allotted areas of 20 feet square on a royalty of £2 per month to the
widow. In 1888 the New Jagersfontein Exploration Company was
incorporated and gradually absorbed the
