Page:Travel letters from New Zealand, Australia and Africa (1913).djvu/309

 like three times as much Briefly, the process of finding the diamonds is as follows: The blue dirt in which the diamonds are found is brought to the surface precisely as coal is hoisted, and mined in about the same way. It is then placed in little iron cars, and hauled to a level field, where it is spread over the surface to a depth of two feet. This is done to permit the weather to disintegrate the dirt, and render its washing easier. Today I saw a field of four thousand acres covered with this blue dirt. It will remain out in the weather a year before it is treated in the washing-mills You might pause a moment and think of that four-thousand-acre field, covered to a depth of two feet with the blue dirt in which diamonds are found. The four-thousand-acre field I saw represented the output of only one mine; there are eight in the Kimberley district, only two of which are known to be duffers, as they say here; that is, of little value And you may rest assured that this four-thousand-acre field is carefully guarded; it is surrounded with a barbed wire fence fourteen feet high, and on top of the fence are four wires spread out in such a way that no one could possibly climb over. At night, the fence is illuminated with electric lights, and there is a patrol of armed guards day and night. But you might be turned loose in the four-thousand-acre field, and not find a diamond in a year; the process of finding them is very intricate, expensive, and difficult. Many of the natives who work in the diamond mines have never seen a diamond: they see only the blue dirt After the blue dirt has lain out in the weather a year, and been plowed up at intervals with steam plows, that all portions of it may