THE SOUTH AFRICAN DIAMOND FIELDS.

Inangahua Times, Volume II, Issue II, 11 June 1880, Page 2

THE SOUTH AFRICAN DIAMOND FIELDS.

• ♦ YUk take the following from the Natal Mercury :— From the Diamond Fields we regret to bear that three waggons hare been washed down the Ya&\ river at Bar* kley. The Modder river has been very high, and quantities of fish had been caught in the mud by U»e over fl >w. The mine at Dufpitspan has been sold for £6500, the highest price yet realised. Ihe mine at Kimberley is now worked to a depth of 291 ft. The administrator is taking st^ps to supply the mine with native labor. The mine at Kimberley does not probably coyer more than fifty or sixty acres of superficial area, and yet that small plot is assessed at a value of £1.650,000. The estimate is of course more or less conjectural, 83 no one can say how deep in the bowe's of the earth the diamondiferous deposit may sink. So far there is no evidence of failing finds* The fact tbat a claim has »old for £6500 is sufficient proof of that, and this, although the mine has all but touched a depth of 300 ft. Diamond digging, as far as Kimberley is concerned, is a phraae of the past, the process being in every sense ! of the <erm a xnining operation. Next to diamonds, potatoes seem to b<? the dearest things on the Fields, £6 10s having been given for* a bag.