Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 69.djvu/281

Rh with which to stir up diamond-bearing gravel in a sluice; a crowbar to pry up stone to lay bare deeper layers or to break down banks of clay or gravel; an iron hook on a pole with which to take diamond bearing gravel from beneath large stones or from cracks otherwise inaccessible; a small wooden basin, called 'carimbé,' for carrying the gravel on the head; a large wooden basin, called 'bateia,' for final washing and concentrating the gravel; some kind of a sieve, from a tin can with nail holes to a more pretentious wire sieve, for sorting gravel and sand during the washing or concentrating process; a hammer and drill for making holes in rock for blasting, but quite often instead fire is built upon a rock desired to be removed, and after the

rock has become very hot cold water is poured thereon, effectively cracking it and permitting its removal.

In the home of the carbon there are no carbon or other mechanical drills. At present one man can make from two to three holes a day, which with proper methods could be made in a few minutes.

The method of mining differs in various sections. In the richest areas the work is of two kinds: removing the subsoil surface disintegration and gravel and that in the gullies, cracks and beneath the more accessible stones, or mining by tunnels or following cracks into the pockets of the mountains, taking out the diamond-and carbon-bearing material consisting of soil, sand, gravel, boulders, broken and disintegrated stone, etc., called 'cascalho.'