54 Transactions of the South African Philosophical Society. 



AN INQUIEY INTO THE OEIGIN OF THE MUD BUSHES 

 IN THE DE BEEE'S MINE, KIMBEELEY ; COVEEING 

 THE PEEIOD JANUAEY 1, 1894, TO DECEMBEE 31, 1896. 



By J. E. Sutton, B.A. 



(Eead March 31, 1897.) 



To the ordinary risks to life and limb, from blasting, from skip 

 and trolley accidents, from sudden and unexpected falls of ground, 

 to which all mines are more or less liable, the De Beer's Diamond 

 Mine at Kimberley has of late added the almost unique and 

 unenviable distinction of mud rushes. It would scarcely be possible 

 to convey, by a mere description, any idea of the appalling aspect in 

 which death presents itself when the mud breaks loose. The 

 tunnels and chambers near its point of exit are rilled up almost at 

 once ; all the candles are extinguished by the rush of air, and in the 

 black darkness men run for their lives. Behind them the mighty 

 torrent tosses great boulders before it as though they were corks, 

 and tears from their places timbers that took perhaps four or five 

 men to lift into place. A person caught in the full flood of the rush 

 will most likely be torn limb from limb. Those overtaken when its 

 force is abating are perhaps only suffocated. Some who stand no 

 chance of reaching the main tunnels in time to escape, perhaps rush, 

 as a forlorn hope, into this or that blind offset. Here the mud may 

 be dammed up by the compressed air, and if the relief party can 

 clear the mud away in time they may be saved alive. In the 

 interval — which may be a day or a week, according to the amount 

 of mud — without food or light, the imprisonment is worse than 

 death. Two out of three natives who were overtaken by a great 

 rush of mud on May 26, 1896, were saved alive in this way after a 

 confinement of 100 hours ; but it is not to be wondered at that 

 neither was quite sane when rescued. 



The composition of the mud varies considerably. It may be 

 scarcely more viscous than dirty water, or it may be as stiff as the 

 cement used by masons, with, of course, any intermediate stage. 

 Generally speaking, when the mud is thin the rush is not of great 

 dimensions, and in many cases, possibly, only happens because a 

 pocket of water near the casing of the mine has been cut into by the 



