The Sunday Oregonian., September 27, 1908, Magazine Section, Page 8, Image 52

T
8
' " 7 PRANK CARPENTER VISITS (.
.- rr, - iv7-vJV THE GREAT PROPERTIES OF ; " .-!
WWM" $$&-. r'sdl THEDE BEERJ COMPANY Nc .V. .Y: ;.
".;.! rhi PRODUCED 25.000.000 : . ; .'I
Wf--s 7 lumZffoum OT GEMS C-, t .!
'Mf. P A YEAR. G-lJ ;-5-;;1-:!Cv- V;J
It f;t&f;:T f 1 j, ; ly- ;.V r-; n-- t- -v V ! - , f.
11 " 1 r fA " - v - L'Il -J'tH wV" ! : I l! i
'-zzzzzrjT? (rteHC mH'v . - ' .: !
PT FRANK O. CARPENTER.
IMBERLKT ls-the Lord's erett
treasor T&olt. Stored away her
In T mlghtjr pipes sf hard rock.
yolAg: down no one knows bow far Into
the earth, la a blue clar sprinkled with
diamonds. Already more than $300,
000,000 worth of precious stones have
been taken from them, and there are
still hundreds of millions in sight. For
many years the sales have amounted to
from 120,000,000 to $30,000,000, and
there are today lying out here in the
open fields, still mixed with this clay,
diamonds which would have set Alad
din crasy or made covetous the heart
of Elnbad the Sailor.
The Diamond Capital.
j These mines lie right close to Ktm-
berley. They form a necklace around
i It, and that, one of the most valuable
I necklaces on earth. The necklace is
I decorated anew every year with $25,
; 000.000 worth of brilliants, which are
i taken from these mines. They are al
I lowed to blase away for a few months
i under the African sun. and are then
j shipped off to daule the drawing-rooms
or au p&ria ul mo giuiw.
The town is a strange one to be the
capital of such wealth.- It has no pal-
aces or skyscrapers, and. like the
Jewels of Portia, Its treasures are kept
1n caskets of lead. The offices of the
Diamond Trust themselves are no bet
I tsr than many a 6x factory in the
United States, and a few thousand dol-
; lars would equal the cost of any build
! lnr inside the town. The most of the
houses are bungalows of brick, roofed
, wilh galvanized iron. They all have
i wide porches about them, and many
bav gardens filled with beautiful tlow-
era The city has wide streets and
. amusement grounds. It has a theater,
churches and hotels. Its stores ars
j large and its business is good. The city
Is lighted by electricity and It has all
t the modern Improvements. The water
comes from the Vaal Klver, which Is 17
! miles awi.y.
A Blrdscye View of the Mines.
All of the mines are within rifle shot
of the center of Klmberley. If we climb
.' to the top of the higher buildings we
! may see the skeletons of the washing
i machines on every side and between
i them the vast weathering floors where
1 the precious earth containing the bril
liants Is allowed to lay and melt. Mot
Ing to them, from the mines, are great
i lines of what. In the distance, seem to
j be ants. They are marching In single
file and are racing with one another as
! they pass to and fro. Now take your
glass and you will see that each ant Is
! a steel car filled with dlamondlferous
earth, and that it Is flying along under
a wtrs cable from the mines to the
I fielda These flields are called floora
' Every mine has its own floor, and in
1 very direction you can see the cars
. moving. The black pygmies who are
! handling the cars are the natives, and
the white ones on the outside are the
I guards to see that the black ants do
. not steal as they work.
Now turn your glass again to the
mlnea About each Is a mighty pit dug
out of the earth. That la the opening
of the mine, the wide basin where the
earth has been cut away until the great
rock pipe, which contains the blue clay
and the diamonds is found.
Pipea of IMamonds.
Until these Klmberley mines were
. discovered, all the diamonds found
: were picked up out of gravel which
lay on or near the surface of the earth.
The Indian - diamonds, among which
were the Kohinoor. the Great Mogul,
the Kegent and the Orloff,'came from
alluvial washings composed of a mix
ture of broken sandstone, quarts, jas
per, flint and granite. The deposit
was about 20 fet thick and was cov
ered by a few feet of black cotton solL
It lay near the bed of a river in India,
not far from Golconda, which was the
chief city to which the diamonds were
taken and sold. The diamonds of Bra
sll wre first discovered in 17J8. They
were found In deposits of clay, quarts,
pebbles and' sand, buried under about
30 feet of other earth. They lay along
the banks of rivers and in a few cases
were imbedded in sandstone. It was
the same with the diamonds of Borneo,
of British Guiana, Australia and Cali
fornia, and also of those which were
first discovered along the Vaal river
near here In South Africa.
It is now over 40 years since the first
African diamond was found. A man
named CyReilly not the one who ran
the hotel, but John O'Reilly, the hunt
r made the first diamond discovery.
It was when he was stopping over
' night with a Boer farmer not far off
; from Klmberley. During the evening
: he saw the children playing with some
' beautiful pebblea lie admired the
stones and took some home with him.
To his surprise he found one would cut
glass, and upon showing It to a jeweler
he was told that it was a diamond and
worth $1500.
Two years after that another big
was discovered by a Hottentot
who traded it to this same Boer farm
er for $2000. Ths Boer sold it to a
diamond merchant and it was sent to
England and was eventually sold to
the Countess of Dudley for $100,000.
These two finds set South Africa
crazy. Diamond seekers came at once
by the thousands, and the Vaal and
Orange rivers were soon covered with
mining campa Men went about every
where digging up the gravel and
searching for stonea As the river
beds became exhausted, the miners
spread out over the country, and fin
ally got here to Klmberley. which is IE
miles from the Vaal. One day a Boer
discovered some diamonds in a clay
bed out of which he was taking ma
terial to build a mud hut. He kept on
digging, and ths result was the Du
toltspan mine, which has proved one
of the richest diamond pipes ever
found. About the same time other
claims were taken up and developed,
and as a result cams the five great
mines which now form the basis of the
De Beers syndicate.
As the miners went down Into the
earth the area In which the precious
stones were discovered became nar
rower and narrower, until at last it
was. In each case, found to consist en
tirely of a sort of blue rock or clay in
side great walls of other and harder
rock. These walla were In the shape
of a pipe, and the pipes were found to
extend down, down, down into the
earth. and each was filled with
this blue ground. As the miners went
down the diamonds did not diminish.
They were found everywhere plenti
fully scattered through the blue clay,'
and this is bo at the depths where they
are mining today, although In the
Klmberley pipe the lower levels are
more than one-half mile from the Bur
face. The Klmberley Mine. v
The Klmberley mine gives one an ex
oellent idea of bow the diamonds lie in
these pipes in the earth. The pipe be
gins with a great funnel which at the top
has a mouth covering 35 acres and which
slopes down to the pipe proper, the in
side of which is about eight acres. The
Klmberley mouth la I Judge, about 800
feet wide, and It slopes evenly down on
all sldea The pipe Itself Is almost round.
Its walls are of a black rock; they are
almost as regularly shaped as though cut
oat by a chisel, and they narrow only
slightly as they go down for more than
2600 feet, For that distance this area of
eight acres was all composed of blue
rock carrying diamonds, and the mine is
producing millions of dollars worth of
diamonds still. The first earth was dug
up with pick and shovel and washed in
a rude way. The wires were rieji down
Into the mlna and the blue ground was
carried np by means of them. It is now
elevated by great engines through shafts
outside the mine Itself, and a continuous
line of steel cars rising all day long.
Something like 700.000 carloads were taken
up last year, and there are now more
than a million loads lying out on the
floora in order that the wind, the rain
and the sun may so weather them that
the diamonds can be taken out. The value
per load is only a few dollars, but there
must be at least six million dollars
worth of diamonds in tlie ground on the
Klmberley floors.
I walked around the Klmberley mine
with Its manager, Mr. C. M. Hen ro tin, an
American mechanical and mining engi
ness, who graduated at Cornell in the
class of 1897 and the son of the former
president of the 'Women's Clubs of the
United States. He tells me there are
more than a tnlllion and a quarter loads
of this precious clay above the level at
which his men are now working.
Underground In the Tutoitep&n.
It was in company with another Ameri
can mining engineer that I explored the
underground workings of the Dutoitspan,
one of the largest diamond mines of the
world. This was Mr. J. T. Fuller, a grad
uate of the Lehigh University. In fact.
all of the mlM8 here are managed by
Americana They were opened up and de
veloped by Mr. Gardiner Williams, who is
now a resident of Washington, and their
present general manager is Mr. Apheus
Williams, his son.
In another place I shall epeak of the
workmen and tell bow they are handled
outside the mines. An army of over 5,
OOD is here employed, and of these more
than 22.000 are natives, who are kept in
guarded compounds and who are not al
lowed to go outside during the terms of
their contracts.
But come with me and take a look at
the Dutoltspan. This is the mine which
was dlsoovered by the farmer when he
was building a clay hut. It is the biggest
of all ths mines of the De Beers Com
pany, and so large that Klmberley pipe
and ths De Beers pipe, wmcn together
are now producing something like $15,000,
000 worth of diamonds every 12 months,
could be lost Inside it It has 38 miles
of tunnels In Its underground workinga
and that although it is not yet one-third
as deep as the Klmberley.
Before entering the mine I was shown
the maps oi the surveyors.' The blue
ground area covers about SO acres and this
Is all drawnt to a scale so that one can
tell the condition of every tunnel from the
surface down to the 750-foot level where
the bottom now ia A great shaft has
been sunk outside the pipe, and tunnels
have been run in at Intervals of 40 feet
to get the diamond earth out. By this
shaft this SO-aere pipe has thus been ex
plored to a depth equal to one and one-
half tbnsa tb balKkt of Mm WaabiasM.1
THE SUNDAY OREGOMAX, PORTLAND. SEPTEMBER 27, 1908.
Monument, and the blue ground has been
found peppered with diamonds through
out. From some of the upper levels much
of the ground has been extracted, but
mining Is now going on at every level, the
amount of earth taken out decreasing un
til at the bottom there are little more
than the tracks used to carry the .oars
of blue clay to the shaft.
AU the ore is taken from ths lowest
leveL Great wells have been sunk
through the pipe from top to bottom.
and the blue ground of each height is
carried through tunnels to these wells
and dropped into reservoirs at the bot
torn. There it is loaded by gravity
into the cars which carry it to the
shaft At present they are raising 10.-
000 loads to the surface every day.
Four thousand negroes are employed.
and In busy seasons the miners work
day and night.
Scenes In the Mines.
It was In company with Mr. Fuller
that I went through the Dutoltspan.
The mines are dirty and the rock is
so sharp that It cuts one's shoea For
this reason we were given boots of sole
leather, such as are used by the miners,
and were clad in miners clothes.
Entering the shaft, we dropped
quickly to the 750-foot level and made
our way by foot larough the tunnels
Into the great pipe. We went along a
car track, passing trains of this blue
ground hauled by American electrlo
locomotives. As the cars reached the
shaft they were dumped without stop
ping. Their contents fall into a great
iron skip and a touch of a button sends
them to the top. The arrangements
are such that two boys can unload 4000
cars in eight hours, and so that, work
ing all day, they can hoist 12,000 cars
to the surface.
As we watched the blue ground fly
ing by I asked Mr. Fuller to give me
some idea of the profits of the mining.
He replied that the Dutoltspan was
one of the richest of the De Beers
Company's properties, and that the
profit on the ore then going up was
something like $37,000 a day. That
means $1,600 an hour, day and night,
or $25 per minute, week in and week
out. In addition to this the blue
ground pays the mining expenses,
amounting to $146,003 per month, and
of that more than $100,000 Is for wages
alone. Talk about your golden streams!
As for me I would prefer one of these
streams of diamonds.
We passed a continuous line of such
cars on our way Into the mine proper,
and then walked for miles through the
tunnels made In the pipe to get out the
blue ground. Much of the mine Is un
llghted. and we had to pick our way
along with candles. Jumping to this
side and that to avoid being run down
by the cars. The tunnels are Just about
as high as one's head and Just wide
enough for the cars to run through
them. They are cut here and there by
cross tunnels, and at times we could
see an electric lleht at a crossing a
mile or so In the distance.
Blasting Out Diamonds.
Everywhere we went the natives
were working. Here they were loading
the blue rock upon cars, and there
they were dumping It down through
the wells to the reservoirs below. In
one place they were blasting. The rock
is of such a nature that compressed
air cannot be used, and the men were
cutting holes five feet deep by means of j
t . I jV - vj ; . .. t fv
I . - I? Z,& - ' - "--
C L. Masterson, of Deep River, Wash., sends to The Sunday Oregonian this photograph of a donkey
bridge across the Nasel River, In Pacific County, Wash-, which Is used for taking the donkey from one side
of the river to the other. It Is built of logs, three of them forming the stringers, with shbrt sticks placed
crosswise. This bridge is about 100 feet long. The donkey and bridge shown la the cut are the property of
the Armstrong & Leonard, Logging Company, of Deep River, Wash.
JZM& -ZZPOKT Holts'
long chisels worked by hand. I cannot
describe the terror Inspired by these
blasts as they go off down there 500
or 600 feet below ground. The boom
Is like that of a big naval gun. and It
strikes the drum of your ear as though
It would break it. The vibration blows
out the candles, and the dynamite fills
the tunnels with a sickening smoke.
Thirty-six thousand blasts are shot off
In that mine every week, and neverthe
less the accidents are few. During the
past year only two men have been
killed, and this is a small mortality
considering that there are 4000 native
workmen and that the mines are
usually operated both day and night.
The amount of explosives used is enor
mous. In 1906 in all the mineB of the
De Beers Company there were con
sumed more than 8,000,000 pounds of
dynamite, and to set this off were used
more than 600 coils of fuse, each 24
inches long. The De Beers Company
has its own dynamite factory not far
from Cape Town. It finds it cheaper
and safer to make its own explosive.
In going through the mines and
Bid Whist the Latest Card Game
Yankee Invention Intended to Eliminate Luck.
THE Fall seems to be the time for
fresh crops of card games and the
nresent vear does not look as if It
would be an exception. The years bring
their own styles with them, and the
prevailing fashion for this season Is un
doubtedly bidding. A card game which
has no bidding In It is not up to date.
They are playinlg nothing but auction
bridge in Great Britain now.
Some persons think that whist is a
dead one, but there are still a large
number of people who think there is no
game like duplicate. It is the chess of
all games of cards. They had a whist
congress In New York this Summer and
several hundred travellers from all
works I ' have been surprised at the
care and economy everywhere shown.
Although the company pays big divi
dends not a cent Is allowed to go to
waste, and the most careful watch Is
kept to avoid any extravagance. As
we went through the- Dutoltspan we
passed a chamber where an electrlo
light was burning, although the work
had been stopped for the time. The man
parts of the United States came here
Just to play whist..
This old guard will tell you that it Is
impossible to Improve whist. Neverthe
less improvements, or at least changes,
in the game have been suggested and
tried, and these changes have been made
In order to bring the game up to mod
ern Ideas; that is, to make it a bidding
game.
Bid whist, as it is called, is designed
to do away with the insuperable objec
tlon to straight whist, which was that
the distribution of the cards settled the
score; because no amount of skill would
beat aces and kings.
Major-General Drayson, the English
whist authority, figured out as the re-
"Mi
Taj -r,
. mr'?V'
ti 5-
5s
uKiAd. g-j:w zZsJK
o
in charge was reproved, and the light
put out. In another place a white boy
was keeping tally of the cars allowed
one to go by which was not quite full.
He was warned that he must not credit
half cars for full cars, and that he
would lose his Job If he did not keep
his eyes open. The same economy is
shown in the engine-rooms, in the
washing machines, in the management
suit of his examination of 20,030 rub
bers that the finest whist player In the
world had no greater advantage over
the worst than about half a trick a rub
ber, with perfectly even luck. His pet
theory was that such of the poor play
ers as were not lucky at the game quit
it; so that the scientific player was al
ways competing with the survival of
the fittest in the world of lucky card
holders. Sounds reasonable?
In straight whist you deal the cards
and turn up a trump. One of the play
ers has six of that suit and his partner
has three honors in trumps and two
other aces. What are you going to do
about it?
Will any amount of skill on your part
stop them from making the odd trick
and scoring simple honors? You -may
have seven spades to the quart major
and two other kings, but what use are
they to you If you cannot make spades
trumps?
In bid whist you don't turn up
trump. The dealer Just gives each
player 13 cards, one at a time, and then
each player in turn, beginning on the
dealer's left, has a chance to declare
how many points he will undertake to
make If he is allowed to name the
trump for that deal. He can pass or be
can bid anything from one up.
If the next man thinks that he can do
better he says so. When it comes round
to the partner of the first bidder be has
to be careful about overbidding unless
he has a great hand of his own, as he
does not know what suit his partner
purposes plcklnlg out.
If any player is overbid he can think
It over and raise his offer a bit if he
feels himself able, until finally no one
will go any higher. The player who
has declared to make the greatest num
ber of points is then asked to tell the
others what is going to be the trump.
The successful bidder has the advan
tage of the first lead, which, enables
him to control the trump situation, so
that he can very often exhaust (he ad
verse trumps before the opponencs get
in their fine work in the line of sneaks
and cross-ruffs. If the bidder does
not want to lead trumps' he can show
his suit so that his partner knows what
to do right from the start. This avoids
the unpleasantness of having to discard
lot of good cards in order to let your
partner know that you have a few
tricks in your hand which you would
like to make after the adversaries get
tired of taking tricks in the other suita
There are 17 points to be played for
In each deal at bid whist 12 tricks
worth one point each and four honors
in the trump suit, each worth one. The
Inventor of bid whist, said to be a Mr.
Jellitfe, a commuter from Boston on the
New Haven road, made it a special point
to throw overboard the English oustom
of counting the honors to the original
holders, just as his ancestors threw the
English tea overboard in Bos con harbor
a few years ago.
The ace, king, queen and Jack of
trumps are the honors, and they count
to the man that catches taem in the
nnmnrtn'fflnwwiiiiiii
-wax. or'
of the blue ground on the floors, and.
In fact, in every part of the works.
The De Beers Company pays big divi
dends because it is thoroughly well
managed, and It makes one feel proud'
to know that, although operated al-j
most entirely by British capital, the'
managers are Americans. ,
In another letter I shall take yortl
over the floors where the blue clay;
melts from the diamonds and leaves!
them but in the sun, and also Into the'
mighty washing factories, where the:
brilliants are taken out and made,
ready for shipment to all parts of the
world.
Klmberley, Afrioa.
play, not to the person to whom theyj
are dealt Mr. Jelliffe la said to have;
spent many sleepless nights trying to:
make this rule apply to the ace ofj
trumps, but he could noc manage it,:
and that card still remains In the pack:
as a monument to the Ineradicable per-,
slstence of luck in the most sclentiflo
of all games of cards. .
All the rules for leading, second band'
play, echoing and unblocking are the:
same as in the regular game of whist.
The eleven rule works Just as smoothly:
as it did 20 years ago. when it was first,'
Introduced to New York society by its'
Inventor. Leading sneaks is still veryj
bad play when the adversaries do it. I
but first-class whist when your partner!
saves one or two little trumps by It
In scoring each side counts what it'
gets, so that there is nothing wasted,;
and the difference between the two to-'
tals is the amount put down. If A-B
bid 10 and make 11, their adversaries,!
Y-Z, getting six, A-B score the differ-,'
ence, which is five,Y-Z getting noth-;
lng. Should A-B fall to make as many;
as they bid their adversaries add the
amount to their score and the unsuc-'
cessful bidders get nothing.
Suppose A-B bid 12 and get 10 only,
out of the 17 points in play, Y-Z must'
have made seven, to which they add the!
12 bid but not made, scoring 19 alto-'
gether.
Sometimes the successful bidder does
not score as much as the other side.j
but as long as his side makes good its:
bid It counts what it gets. The highest,
bid may be only eight points, and even
if the bidders get their eight they lose
on the balance, their opponents getting '
nine. This is better than letting the
other side make a trump on which they
might have made six or eight points on.
the balance through a fortunate com-,
blnatlon of their hands, neither of
which had a good bid.
In order to give the partners the be
nefit of the straight In each other's
hand some players have suggested that
the bidder should name the suit when
he names the points. When this Is
done a player can bid some small
amount on a suit Just to show that he
is strong lnlt without any intention
of having it for the trump. The part
ner can then take the indication in con- ,
Junction with his own declaration. This
is getting pretty close to auction bridge.
Reserved Her Verdict.
Philadelphia Inquirer.
A gentleman who was no longer young.
and who never was handsome, said to a
child in the presence of her parents:
'Well, my dear, what do you think of
me?" i
The little girl mads no reply, and thai
gentleman continued. '
Well, you don't tell ma Why won't'
you?" i
Two little fat hands tucked the corners
of a pinafore into her mouth, as she said,
archly, in a timid whisper:
'Cause I don't want to get whipped,"
1
V