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34 A Book of Precious Stones
Kopje; this was the beginning of the now world-famous Kimberley mine and the South African mining metropolis of Kimberley.
From
this event until 1904, the whole history of South African diamond
mining has been ably and thoroughly covered in the copiously
illustrated and valuable book of Gardner F. Williams, M.A., entitled The Diamond Mines of South Africa. Mr.
Williams was long the general manager of the De Beers Consolidated
Mines, Ltd., and by experience and known capacity is the recognised
authority upon this important subject in the realm of gem history.
A
description of the financiering which reconciled warring interests and
heterogeneous human elements, to which was added a genius for
management which, through science in chemistry, mineralogy, mechanics,
and business system, attained the highest degree of economic production
and marketing, is not the least fascinating chapter in the wonderful
story of the diamond in South Africa. The history of the contest
between Briton and Boer, and all else that grew out of the discovery of
diamonds on the Vaal, cannot be told here; but the modern methods of
extracting the rough diamonds from the blue ground in which they have
rested
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