168 THE DIAMOND MINES OF SOUTH AFRICA
Lilienfeld
and his associates, and obtained judgment for £760 19.S. 4d. and costs,
February 12, 1893. In 1876, when the Land Commission heard this case,
the London and South African Exploration Company had been formed, and
the title to the farm was granted to that company, as successors of the
" Hopetown Company."
Bultfontein
was linked to Dorstfontein by the acquisition of both farms by one
holder, and transferred in a subsequent sale to investors associated as
the London and South African Exploration Company. The farm of
Vooruitzigt, which lay bordering on Dorstfontein and Bultfontein to the
north, was bought for £6ooo shortly after by other speculative
investors,— the firm of Messrs. Dunell, Ebden & Co., of Port
Elizabeth. The correct record of these farms is as follows : —
Bultfontein was originally granted by the British Government (then
occupying the Free State under the name of " The Orange River
Sovereignty") to J. F. Otto, December 16, 1848, under Warden
certificate.
Dorstfontein was granted by the Free State Government to Abraham Pauls du Toit on the 4th of April, 1860.
Alexandersfontein
was granted by the Free State Government to Johannes Cornelis Coetzee
on the 3d of December, 1862. That portion cut off by the Free State
boundary from Griqua-land West was granted to Philip Rudolph Nel and
Willem Gabriel Nel on the 16th of January, 1880.
Vooruitzigt was originally a portion of Bultfontein, and was sold to D. A. and J. N. de Beer on the 18th of April, 1860.
At the time of these purchases the price paid for any ground outside of a short stretch on the Dorstfontein farm was wholly speculative. There had been no considerable discovery of diamonds except along the top of a sloping ridge or long kopje lying north, at a distance of about a third of a mile, from du Toit's pan. The total area of the three farms was about fifty-eight and a half (58-1/2) square miles.1 The comparative ease of
1
The total area of" the farms, Dorstfontein (6579 acres), Bultfontein
(14,457 acres), and Vooruitzigt (16,405 acres), is 37,441 acres, equal
to 58-1/2 square miles.
