SOUTH AFRICA AND ITS DIAMONDS. 
171 
"both by native chiefs of the Batclapin (or Koranna) tribes, and 
"by the Orange Biver Free States (lying south of the river), and 
even by the Transvaal Bepublic, whose main territory is higher 
up to the East on the north side of the Vaal. The rights of 
ownership and the demarcation of boundaries are to be settled 
by Commissioners or otherwise ; and some kind of regular 
government has to be organised, in spite of the rowdyism 
of the gem-seeking cosmopolites and the disputes of the con- 
terminous states and tribes, if the diamond-yielding character 
of the region be persistent, or if the labour and capital of 
the present settlers succeed, as is probable, in fixing civilised 
homes thus far in the Interior, in spite of the sandy and stony 
soil, and of the floods of one season of the year and the scorch- 
ing heats of another. 
Of the Klip-drift Diamond-field a surveyed plan has been 
sent to England by Mr. E. T. Cooper, one of the Government 
land-surveyors of the Cape Colony. It was published in the 
“ Mining Journal” of March 4, 1871, and gives a good notion 
of the existing topography and drainage, and of their relation 
to the probable conditions under which the diamonds were 
deposited there. 
At and near Klip-drift the river has an extremely winding 
course among somewhat flat-topped hills, a mile or so in their 
greater diameters, and varying from 300 to 450 feet in height, 
with gullies or creeks running down between them to the river. 
The tops and slopes of these hills (“Kopjes” they are locally 
termed) have been the chief sources of diamonds to the diggers. 
According to Mr. E. T. Cooper, writing in October 1870, 
Hond’s Kopje, 400 feet high, has yielded possibly 15,000£. worth 
of diamonds; Bosa’s Kopje, 400 feet, about 100,000Z. worth 
(including a diamond of fifty-six carats) ; and Original Kopje, 
300 feet, upwards of 100,000£. worth.* The yield of the hills 
on either side of the river at the drift or ford itself (on the 
mission ground 450 feet, and opposite about 50 feet high) is 
not specified. 
The flats by the waterside do not appear to have been here suc- 
cessfully worked — only the sides and summits of the hills ; and 
here the diamonds are found in a ferruginous gravelly alluvium, 
* These estimated values for Klip-drift alone far surpass the declared 
value of the diamonds shipped to England, according to the statement in 
the u Times ” for February 7, 1871. Klip-drift, rich as it is, has been 
deserted by the digger for Hebron and Cawood’s Hope. The latter place is 
opposite Gong-gong, and the diggings are in recent alluvium, accumulated 
by the river between an island and the bank. This we learn, whilst this 
paper is in the press, from Mr. Barry’s Lecture of January 27, reported in 
the 11 Grahamstown Journal,” and reprinted in the u Colonial .News ” of 
March 17. 
