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THE BOOK OF DIAMONDS
and
black labor, goes on day and night, just to win a few stones wherewith
to deck my lady's finger! All to gratify the vanity of woman! "And" a
lady who overheard this, remarked, "for the depravity of man".
The
process of mining diamonds is interesting and yet simple. The "blue
ground," as the diamond-bearing ground is called, is a shale-like
material. It contains approximately one grain of diamond per ton of
ground, or one part in fourteen millions, and the recovery of this
small content is the problem which has to be faced. Subsequent
recovery depends upon the fact that the diamond is of a higher specific
gravity than the ground with which it is associated.
The
blue ground is blasted out in the same manner as coal or any other
mineral. This ground from the mine varies in size from lumps which
measure eighteen inches across down to dust. When it is brought to the
surface it is sent to the crushers. These are run very slowly, for,
although the diamond is the hardest substance known—so hard, in fact,
that under sufficient pressure it can be pressed into a solid
steel-like structure—a blow will fracture it into small pieces.
Naturally, then, the breaking up of the dia-mantiferous ground must be
attended with great care. On being broken up, the blue ground is passed
through a series of especially constructed pans where a copious supply
of water washes off the more readily soluble material, leaving the
concentrates (insoluble) behind with a percentage of smaller
undissolved lumps of blue ground. The small stones and other material
are then passed through a second set of
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