Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 41.djvu/473

Rh carats of diamonds, realizing by sale over £3,500,000, produced by washing some 2,700,000 loads of blue ground. Each load represents three quarters of a ton, and costs in extracting about 8s. 10d. per load, realizing a profit of 20s. to 30s. per carat sold. The annual amount of money paid away in interest and dividends exceeds £1,300,000. The dividends might have been much larger, but the



policy of the present board of directors appears to be to restrict the production of diamonds to the quantity the world can easily absorb, to maintain the price of the diamonds at a fair level from 28s. to 32s. per carat, and, in order the better to carry out this policy, to accumulate a very large cash reserve. I believe that the reserve already accumulated amounts to nearly £1,000,000, and that this amount is to be doubled in the course of the next year or two, when the board will feel that they have occupied for their shareholders a position unassailable by any of the changes and chances of commerce. In the working of the mine there are employed about 1,300 Europeans and 5,700 natives. The wages paid range high, and figures concerning them may interest the English artisan. Mechanics and engine-drivers receive from £6 to £7 per week, miners from £5 to £6, guards and tally-men from £4 to £5; natives in the underground works are paid from 4s. to 5s. per day. In the work on the "floors" which is all surface work, overseers receive from £3 12s. to £4 2s., machine-men and assorters from £5 to £6, and ordinary native laborers from 17s. 6d. to 21s. per week. In addition, every employé on the "floors" has a percentage on the value of diamonds found by himself, the white employés