Diamond Mines: The Great White Camps Page 248



	198 THE DIAMOND MINES OF SOUTH AFRICA would sell off parts of his claim or the whole at high prices; for bidders were ready to pay large premiums beyond the license fee of 10s. exacted from every working owner, whether his claim was full size or a paring. The competition for a share in the riches of the ground was only less keen at De Beers, and there was a like subdivision of claims there, and not infrequently at Dutoitspan and Bultfontein.¹ It was obvious from the start, without any stretch of foresight, that these minute subdivisions of claims and individual working were only practicable in open cuttings whose depth must depend on the character of the ground and the cooperation of the miners. But at the outset of the mining in these Fields no one could forecast the unknown continuance in depth of the diamond deposits, and few supposed that the new beds differed essentially from any before uncovered, and were vastly more important than the shallow gravel wash along the banks of the Vaal. It was commonly expected that some barren stratum would be reached not far from the surface, corresponding to the " bed rock " of the river diggings, and that this must terminate the hope of the diamond seekers.² So the rush for the surface claims was the keener, in view of the belief that a few months' work at most would exhaust the precious deposit, and nobodv paused to consider what he would do if he was unable to sink an open pit deeper. Beneath the red surface soil at Dutoitspan a thin layer of calcareous tufa⁸ had been exposed, below which lay the diamond-bearing breccia which the miners called " yellow ground " from its prevailing color.⁴ At De Beers and Kimberley there was comparatively little limestone beneath the red soil, for the ¹ "The Diamond Diggings of South Africa," Payton, 1872. ² Ibid. ³ I look upon the calcareous tufa which covered the diamond mines as only the altered yellow ground which had been metamorphosed by the evaporation of water highly charged with carbonate of lime. The calcareous tufa which covered the Premier mine was diamond bearing. This is the only one of the mines whose surface ground has come under my personal observation. — The Author. ⁴ "The Diamond Diggings of South Africa," Payton, 1872.