II I DDES 117-;. I ///'// /.v III! in <i I (;ri.\\.\ 



501 



fact, as I learned later, lii.s ability was so 

 marvelous that instead of making the dia- 

 monds go to the bottom center as he should 

 have done, he often brought them to the top 

 and picked them off for himself. 



When I first saw him he was at work, 

 stooping astride a pool about three I'cet 

 across and two feet tleep. By a series of 

 calculated motions he attempted to form a 

 centrifugal force which would serve to center 

 the heaviest material in the bottom of the 

 sieve, and as diamonds are the heaviest of 

 the pebbles, they naturally are the first to 

 respond to the movements. Where diamonds 

 are found, there are likely to be also tin, car- 

 lion, and pulsite, mixed with quartz. These 

 minerals are heaviest next to diamonds, and 

 are therefore also sent to the bottom. 



The sieve filled with gravel was lowered 

 into the water and turned from left to right 

 while kept in a level position. Then it was 

 quickly lowered and raised in the water and 

 shaken from side to side while being turned 

 around. Finally, it was swung around while 

 tilted. After a few minutes of such work, 

 the man scooped up the top gravel and threw 

 it away; then he added new gravel to that 

 left in the sieve, and repeated the operation 

 again and still again for an hour. By this 

 time, there was left in the sieve only black 

 carbon, brown pulsite, and a small center of 

 tin, in which the diamonds, if any, were to 

 be found. The sieve was now turned upside 

 down on a piece of level canvas stretched 

 out on the ground by means of pegs. From 

 the middle of the overturned residue, he 

 picked out a small but perfectly shaped dia- 

 mond of one half carat. That stone I have 

 with me today as a reminder of the first time 

 I ever saw a diamond taken from the soil. 



Diamonds are easily identified in the raw 

 state by their peculiar sheen and shape, but 

 if there is any doubt about the stones, the 

 matter can be decided by subjecting them to 

 pressure between two knives. Anything ex- 

 cept a diamond can be crushed. In color 

 they vary from white to pink, blue, yellow, 

 green, and black. Their shapes range from 

 spherical to flat, and include some nearly 

 perfect diamond-shaped gems. A few stones 

 which I saw were so perfect, both in shape 

 and color, that it was difficult to believe they 

 had not been cut and polished by ma- 

 chinery. The largest stone on record for 

 this region weighed fourteen carats ; it was 

 found by a pork-knocker nanicii London, 



who, because of his great size and strength 

 and previous lawless acts, was feared by the 

 other bushinen. At that time he was work- 

 ing for another man, and strange to say, 

 contrary lo tlic precis h'lit set by his previous 

 life, lie lunicil tlic stone over to his em- 

 ployci-. 1 clKuict'il to meet him afterward in 

 the interior and asked him how it came 

 about that he ilid not keep the stone for 

 himself. With an unlooked-for show of 

 elo(|uence he said, "Give unto Cajsar what is 

 Ca?sar's, and unto God what is God's— any- 

 way he be too beeg a stone for one feller- 

 man to steal." His employer probably never 

 would have seen the stone if it had been a 

 mere five carats, but for once London had 

 been scared into honesty. 



The one mine that the colony had, the "Le 

 Desire," was located in the alluvial deposits 

 in an old bed of the Mazaruni, about two 

 hundred miles within the forest. The river 

 had changed its course since depositing this 

 sixty-foot pile of diamond-bearing gravel, 

 which with age had conglomerated, and on 



After the gravel has been worked down to a 

 very thin layer made up of a brown stone called 

 pulsite, small particles of tin, pebbles of carbon, 

 and any possible diamonds, the sieve and its con- 

 tents are turned upside down on the sorting 

 table. The biggest diamonds are usually found 

 right on top in the middle of the heap. With 

 the point of a knife, the sorters flip each pulsite, 

 tin, and carbon pebble, one by one, from the 

 mass, leaving tlic diiimonds on tlie mat 



