ORIGIN OF THE AMERICAtt NEGRO. 136 



(rersal in the workings. One set of workers attends to the rock- 

 drilHng machines for blasting the blue ground; in other parts the 

 blue is shoveled into wagons, which, when filled, are carried along 

 rails by moving ropes till they get to the gallery, where the contents 

 are sent to the surface. 



At the bottom of the main shaft, at the 1,300- foot level, the 

 galleries converge to a large open space .where the tram lines car- 

 rying the trucks meet. In front is a chute to which the trucks full 

 of blue ground are rapidly wheeled, tipped over and their contents 

 discharged, when they are shunted to make way for other trucks. 

 At the foot of the shoot is a "skip" holding 64 cubic feet, or four 

 truck loads, an electric bell sounds at the engine-house, when the 

 skip is hoisted to the surface and another takes its place. So the 

 work proceeds, and on busy days ground has been hoisted at the 

 rate of 20 loads every three minutes, equal to 400 loads an hour. 

 In 1894 the record hoisting of blue ground at the Kimberley mine 

 was 470 loads an hour; in one shift of eight hours 3,312 loads, and 

 in a day of three shifts, 7,415 loads. 



WEIRD CREATURES DELVE FOR COSTLY GEMS. 



All below ground is dirty, muddy, grimy; half naked men, 

 black as ebony, muscular as athletes, with perspiration oozing from 

 every pore, are seen in every direction, hammering, picking, shovel- 

 ing, wheeling the trucks to and fro, keeping up a weird chant, which 

 rises in force and melody when a titanic task requires excessive 

 muscular strain. The whole scene is far more suggestive of a coal 

 mine than a diamond mine, and all this mighty organization, this 

 strenuous expenditure of energy, this clever, costly machinery, this 

 ceaseless toil of skilled and black labor, going on day and night, is 

 just to win a few stones wherewith to deck my lady's finger. 



The sorting room in the pulsator house is long, narrow and well 

 lighted. Here the rich gravel is brought in wet, a sieveful at a time, 

 and is dumped in a heap on tables covered with iron plates. 



The tables at one end take the coarsest lumps, next comes the 

 gravel which passed the three-eiehths-inch holes, then the next in 

 order, and so on. The first sorting is done by thoroughly trust- 



