Diamond Mines: Camps on the Vaal Page 184



	THE CAMPS ON THE VAAL	145

	diamond of Russia was discovered on the west flank of the Ural Mountains by Humboldt and Rose, in a gold placer field near the iron mines of Bissersk. Here the prevailing rock formation, like that in the upper diamond fields of Brazil, was itacolu-mite, with an admixture of mica and iron pyrites.¹ The debris washed into a few valleys beneath this range yielded a meagre return to the searchers, but there was nothing to inspire any ardent working, and in Bohemia, Australia, Mexico, and the United States, the picking up of a few isolated specimens was noted as a curious occurrence rather than as the foundation of any hope of a productive diamond field.² So, at the time of the discoveries of diamonds on the banks of the Vaal River, there was no known method for the extraction of diamonds beyond the shovel of the Indian, the batea of the Brazilian, or the cradle of the gold miner. There was no anticipation, on the part of the diamond seekers, of any formation in Africa except the diamond-bearing gravel of alluvial deposits, and the prospectors of the first rush did not seek for diamonds beyond the gravel along the banks of the Vaal. The Early Mining at Klip-drift, now called Barkly West. The first waves of the influx from the southern country and coast towns were warmly greeted by the small parties at work on the Vaal. The diggers were squatters, without any legal title to an inch of the river bank, as they very well knew. But thev relied on actual possession without contest, for their rocky field was so apparently worthless that no farmer had cared to secure it. They did not trouble their heads with any questioning whether the South African Republic covered their shore line, or whether any native tribe laid claim to it, but they were ¹ "A Treatise on Gems," Feuchtwanger, 1867. " Notices sur les Diamants de POural," Parrot. "Transactions of the Imperial Russian Mineralogical Society," at St. Petersburg, 1842. " De Novis quibusdam Fossilibus quae in mon-tibus Uraliis inveniuntur," Gustav Rose, 1839. ² "Gems and Precious Stones of North America," Kunz, 1890.