DIAMONDS	13
	year later he joined his brother in his mining ventures. This same year, 1873, Barnett J. Barnatto came from London to join his brother, Henry, at Kimberley, as a buyer of rough dia­monds. Both Rhodes and Barnatto soon acquired some property and became interested as small mine owners. They increased these holdings rapidly, until after a time both saw the need of combination in mine ownership and especially the need of scientific management in operating the mines. In 1888, they, with Messrs. Rothschild, Alfred Beit, and other able mining men, formed the DeBeers Con­solidated Mines, Ltd. Since the formation of this company the mines have been developed along scientific lines by an extremely able management, resulting in great benefit to the company and also to the world. Since the formation of the syndicate the price of the gems has never been allowed to break, — even in times of the greatest com­mercial depression. In the early days of diamond mining, on the other hand, and especially in India and Brazil, prices sometimes fluctuated very widely. Mr. Streeter, as an example, states that at the time of the com­mercial crisis of 1857 the prices of Brazilian diamonds fell to one half that of the year previous.