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OPENING THE CRATERS 221
through
the period of the open mine working, to show the different methods
employed, and how one mine profited by the costly experience of
another. The superior richness of the diamond-bearing ground in
Kimberley mine urged forward its opening more rapidly than the
development of the others, and this may properly be outlined first. The
plan of mining, with the reservation of roadways determined by the
Free State inspectors, proved a poor makeshift at best, before the
sinking of claims had progressed many feet below the sur-
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face.
The bordering-claim owners undercut the roadways crossing the mine, in
working to the bounds of their allotments, and these reserved roads
soon began to cave away in places to an extent that made the passage of
carts very risky. It was doubtless convenient to have ready access to
every part of the surface of the mine, and it was a moving spectacle
when fourteen parallel roadways were covered with files of plunging
mules and rumbling carts, goaded by the cries and whips of many
hundreds of half-naked Kafirs or white drivers ; but it was a pitiful
burlesque of mining when the roadways cracked and crumbled, and
crevasses were bridged with sliding planks, and mule carts
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