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308 THE DIAMOND
a
serpentive conglomerate, similar to the Kimberley blue, of a
greenish-gray ground-mass inclosing deep green diallage-like augite,
some olivines, biolite, magnetite, ilmenite, and pyrite with pyrope
garnets.
In
the beginning, the diamonds were taken to Kimberley every two weeks
and sold to the Syndicate, but as the output increased, they were sold
in the open market. Later, as the yield assumed proportions which
threatened the stability of the market and made the Premier a
formidable competitor of the syndicate established by the De Beers
management, an effort was made to include the sale of the Premier
output with that of the Kimberley mines, under the same management. A
contract to that end was made October 28, 1907, for a short period, but
it was terminated in March, 1908, and the Premier Company again
marketed its own diamonds.
Notwithstanding
the decline of percentage in yield per load, the increase of total
yield was so rapid and phenomenal, that the men who had hitherto
controlled the world's industry in diamonds were staggered.
Owing
to a glut of diamonds in the market after a year of enormous production
followed by a panic in the United States, which practically cut off
demand from the industry's best customer, part of the plant was shut
down January 1, 1908, thereby reducing the output thirty thousand
carats per month, but the mine is evidently in a position, with the
plant to be installed in 1909, to turn out at will from three to four
million carats per annum. Back in 1905, the management declared that it
was then prepared to supply up to twelve million loads of blue per
annum, for one hundred years to come. Even at the present decreased
yield per load, that would
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