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1048
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MINERAL RESOURCES.
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of Montgomery County to those of the South African diamond mines and commenced prospecting. A badly flawed diamond weighing 2-1/4 carats
is reported to have been found and indications are that more thorough
prospecting will be done. A stone reported to have come from Montgomery
County was shown to the Sweeney Jewelry Co., of Houston, Tex., and was
pronounced diamond. In a communication to the United States Geological
Survey Mr. Packer states that the diamond was found 4 miles north of
Montgomery and weighed 3-1/4 carats.
ILLINOIS.
A
discovery of diamond has been reported in Jefferson County, Ill. Mr.
Austin Q. Millar, of St. Louis, informed Dr. F. W. De Wolf, of the
State Geological Survey of Illinois, in a letter dated February 9,
1912, that a man had displayed 22 diamonds to the Eisenstadt
Manufacturing Co., of St. Louis. The largest of these stones weighed
7-1/4 carats. Mr. Eisenstadt, of the Eisenstadt Manufacturing Co.,
informed the writer that the stones were genuine and were reported to
have come from the vicinity of Macomb, Ill., by C. L. Goulding, a
jeweler of Alton, Ill. A press reportl gives the locality as
the farm of Matthew Fox, near Ashley, and states that the stone weighed
7-3/4 carats and would yield a gem worth about $225. A letter from Mr.
Fox to the writer, dated Wood River, Ill., April 29, 1912, gives the
following information: The diamond was found in Jefferson County about
a year ago on the farm of T. H. Bledsoe, about 3-1/2 miles east of
Ashley. It was found on a sloping piece of ground in the gravelly soil
of a cornfield a few yards from a stream. It weighed 7 carats and was
purchased by a firm in Alton for $175.
AFRICA. UNION OF SOUTH AFRICA.
Cape Colony.—The output of diamonds during the fiscal year 1911 by the De Beers Consolidated Mines2
amounted to 2,180,856 carats, valued at £4,938,087, as compared with
2,416,666 carats, valued at £5,414,896, in 1910. The total production
of blue ground in 1911 amounted to 8,105,138 loads, as compared with
5,111,524 loads in 1910. The total amount of blue ground washed was
9,219,192 loads, as compared with 8,531,090 loads in 1910. The stock of
blue ground and lumps on the floors was increased from 7,776,059 loads
in 1910 to 9,021,026 loads in 1911. The De Beers mine has not been
reopened since it was closed in 1908. The surface equipment is being
remodeled. Blue ground from the depositing floors of all the mines was
washed. The yield in carats of diamonds per load of blue ground washed
decreased from 0.38 to 0.28 at the De Beers and Kimberly mines, from
0.32 to 0.27 at the Wesselton mine, and from 0.23 to 0.21 at the
Dutoitspan mine. The yield per load of blue ground washed increased
from 0.37 to 0.38 carat at the Bultfontein mine.
Transvaal.3—The
production of diamonds in Transvaal during the fiscal year ending June
30, 1910, amounted to 2,098,528 carats, valued at £1,317,479—an
increase of 169,036 carats in quantity and of
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