Aprit 1, 1897 | 
NATURE 
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The five years which Pasteur spent upon this successful, 
though harassing, inquiry told terribly upon his health, and he 
was struck down by a paralytic seizure, from the physical effects 
of which he never absolutely recovered, though the clearness of 
his intellect was never for a moment impaired. His researches on 
silkworm diseases, and his long and intimate contact with fermen- 
tation phenomena, gradually paved the way for the momentous 
step which led him, at the already ripe age of fifty-five, to enter 
upon the study of diseases in the pursuit of which he was to win 
his most glorious laurels.g Prof. Frankland described how 
Pasteur, after much hesitation, was led himself to embark upon 
this quest in consequence of his anxiety lest through exaggerated 
statements and undue haste in drawing conclusions—a tendency 
exhibited by many who at this time took up the bacteriological 
study of diseases—a reaction should be provoked, and the new 
ideas consequently fall into disfavour. Pasteur commenced his 
campaign by investigating the disease known as anthrax ; but 
even while carrying on the most elaborate researches on this 
subject, he was turning in all directions for material to extend 
his studies on pathological phenomena. He walks the hos- 
pitals, armed with sterile vessels, to collect morbid products ; 
he isolates the staphylococcus pyogenes ; he visits the Maternity 
Hospital, and discovers the streptococcus pyogenes, asserting 
it to be the cause of puerperal fever. But the occupation of 
discovering pathogenic bacteria, fascinating as it was, could not 
permanently engross Pasteur’s attention, and his ambition, 
stimulated by the contemplation of Jenner’s great discovery, 
led him to seek a means of securing immunity from those 
diseases of which the specific viruses had been discovered, 
similar to that which his great predecessor had secured in the 
case of small-pox. Pasteur’s discovery of a vaccine for fowl 
cholera was soon followed by vaccines for Rozget de porc or 
swine measles, and for anthrax, the saving to his country by 
the use of the anthrax vaccine alone having amounted to no 
less than 280,000/. in the course of the ten years from 1884 to 
1894. The magnificent triumph which followed the discovery 
of these vaccines was, however, if possible, eclipsed by the 
elaboration of a cure for rabies; nearly 20,000 persons have 
undergone Pasteur’s anti-rabic treatment, and the mortality 
amongst these treated persons has been less than 5 per 1000. 
The public expression of gratitude for this great discovery, con- 
cluded the lecturer, took the form of a general subscription, 
which rendered possible the foundation of the Institut Pasteur, 
which its great namesake had long cherished as a dream, and 
the realisation of which was the delight of his few remaining 
years ; and here, under the auspices of Duclaux, Roux, Cham- 
berland, and Metschnikoff, the sacred fire kindled by /e grand 
Maittre is stillburning. Long may this flame be fed within the 
temple where now rests in eternal sleep that hero of science, 
whose greatest ambition was to be able, in his last hour, to 
pronounce the words, so simple in their form, so boundless 
in their aspiration, 7’@? fact ce gue j'ai pu. 
THE DIAMOND MINES OF KIMBERLEY. 
It is a standing surprise to the watchful outsider how little 
attention is bestowed on some of our colonies. For in- 
stance, to the Cape Colony, comprising vast, varied, and pro- 
ductive regions, we have till recently manifested profound 
ignorance and consequent indifference. When the Cape 
Colony was first incorporated with the Empire, it was pro- 
nounced ‘‘a bauble, unworthy of thanks.” Yet before the 
Suez Canal and the Waghorn overland route to India, the 
Cape, as commanding our road to India, Australia, and China, 
had a special importance. Even now it presents an alternative 
route which under conceivable circumstances may be of capital 
moment. 
The high grounds above Cape Town are rich in medicinal 
health-giving waters. The districts where these springs occur 
are high-lying, free from malaria, and admirably adapted for 
the restoration of invalids. It needs only some distinguished 
power to set the fashion, some emperor, prince, or reigning 
beauty to take the baths and drink the waters, and the tide of 
tourists would carry prosperity to Aliwal North, Fraserburg, 
‘Craddock, and Fort Beaufort. 
From London to Kimberley by the Cape route is about 6700 
miles, and is compassed in three weeks, although I would 
1 Two lectures delivered at the Imperial Institute, on November 16 and 
December 7, 1896, by Dr. William Crookes, F.R.S. 
NO. 1431, VOL. 55] 
warmly recommend any one on pleasure bent to do as my wife 
and I did—spend a few days at Cape Town—before commencing 
the tedious railway journey to Kimberley. 
The famous diamond mines in the neighbourbeod are Kim- 
berley, De Beers, Dutoitspan, Bulfontein, and Wesselton. 
They are situated in latitude 28° 43’ South, and longitude 
24 46’ East. The town itself is 4042 feet above sea-level. 
Other mines in the neighhourhood are worked for diamonds, 
but as yet they are unimportant. Kimberley is practically in 
the centre of the present diamond-producing area. Besides 
these mines, two others of some importance in the Orange Free 
State are known as Jagersfontein and Coffeefontein, about 
sixty miles from the Kimberley diamond region. 
KIMBERLEY. 
The surface of the country round Kimberley is covered with 
a ferruginous red, adhesive, sandy soil, which makes horse 
traffic very heavy. Below the red soil is a basalt, much de- 
composed and highly ferruginous, from 20 to go feet thick, and 
lower still from 200 to 250 feet of black slaty shale containing 
carbon and iron pyrites. These are known as the Kimberley 
shales; they are very combustible, and in a part of the De 
3eers mine where they were accidentally fired, they smouldered 
for over eighteen months. Then follows a bed of conglomerate 
about 10 feet thick, and below the conglomerate about 400 feet 
of a hard compact rock of an olive colour, called ‘*‘ melaphyre ” 
or olivine diabase. Below the melaphyre is a hard quartzite 
about 400 feet thick. The strata are almost horizontal, dipping 
slightly to the north : in places they are distorted and broken 
through by protruding dykes of trap. There is no water nearer 
than the Vaal river, about fourteen miles away, and formerly 
the miners were dependent on rain-water and a few springs and 
pools. Now, however, a constant and abundant supply of 
excellent water is served to the town, whilst good brick houses, 
with gardens and orchards, spring up on all sides. To mark 
the dizzy rate of progress, Kimberley has an excellent club and 
one of the best public libraries in South Africa. Parts of the 
town, affectionately called ‘* the camp” by the older inhabitants, 
are not beyond the galvanised iron stage, and the general 
appearance is unlovely and depressing. eunart reckons that 
over a million trees have been cut down to supply timber for 
the mines, and the whole country within a radius of 100 miles 
has been denuded of wood with the most injurious effects on 
the climate. The extreme dryness of the air, and the absence 
of trees to break the force of the wind and temper the heat of 
the sun, probably account for the dust storms so frequent in 
summer. The temperature in the day frequently rises to 100° 
in the shade, but in so dry a climate this is not unpleasant, and 
I felt less oppressed by this heat than I did in London the 
previous September. Moreover, in Kimberley, owing to the 
high altitude, the nights are always cool. 
The approach to Kimberley is deadly dull. The country is 
almost treeless, and the bare veldt stretches its level length, 
relieved only by distant hills on the horizon. 
THE PIPEs. 
The five diamond mines are all contained in a circle 3 miles 
in diameter. They are irregularly shaped round or oval pipes, 
extending vertically downwards to an unknown depth, retain- 
ing about the same diameter throughout. They are said to be 
voleanic necks, filled from below with a heterogeneous mixture 
of fragments of the surrounding rocks, and of older recks, such 
as granite, mingled and cemented with a bluish coloured hard 
clayey mass, in which famous blue clay the imbedded diamonds 
are hidden. 
The breccia filling the mines, usually called “‘ blue ground,” 
is a collection of fragments of shale, various eruptive rocks, 
boulders, and crystals of many kinds of minerals. Indeed, a 
more heterogeneous mixture can hardly be found anywhere else 
on this globe. The ground mass is of a bluish-green, soapy to 
the touch, and friable, especially after exposure to the weather. 
Prof. Maskelyne considers it to be a hydrated bronzite with a 
little serpentine. Besides diamonds, Moissan has detected more 
than eighty species of minerals in the blue ground, the more 
common being :—Magnetite, ilmenite, garnet, bright green fer- 
riferous enstatite (bronzite), a hornblendic mineral closely re- 
sembling smaragdite, calc-spar, vermiculite, diallage, jeffreysite, 
mica, kyanite, augite, peridot, iron pyrites, wollastonite, vaalite, 
zircon, chrome iron, rutile, corundum, apatite, olivine, sahlite, 
chromite, pseudobrookite, perofskite, biotite, and quartz. The 
