gJ4 SKETCH OF AFRICAN DISCOVERY. 
When diamonds were first found here, the land was free 
to any one to search over, but the news of their discovery 
led to the influx of such a large body of persons, to engage 
in this work, that, as in California and Australia, the right 
of private property began soon to assert itself, and claims 
began immediately to rise in value, until a good one, thirty 
feet square, commands already $15,000. 
Already about Kopje is gathered a population of about 
forty thousand people. The tents which they have erected 
for their accommodation are seen in the distance in our 
illustration. The New Rush is eight hundred yards wide, 
witli eight parallel roads running through it, along which 
the dirt from the excavations below is carted away. At 
first there was uo organization of the labor, and no arrange- 
ment by which the private interests of those engaged in it 
should be prevented from becoming detrimental to the pub- 
lic welfare. In consequence, the private excavations have 
been carried on as far, or in some cases, farther, than either 
safety or a fair prospect for profit dictated, and without 
any regard for preserving tne roads. In many cases, also, 
these roadways were left so narrow that there was hardly 
room for two carts to pass, and now they are really dan- 
gerous, having become, as they are, narrow causeways, 
seventy or eighty feet high, and being unstayed or sup- 
ported by any but the most temporary appliances. 
This place, New Rush, is the only one which is still 
considered as a profitable spot for diamond digging. 
Other places, ns Hebron, Phiel, Klipdrift and Du Toit’s 
Pan, have been chiefly exhausted, and diamond digging 
there requires too much patience to suit such an adven- 
turous class as generally engage in speculative labor of 
this kind. 
The gold fields are about three hundred miles from the 
banks of the Yanl, and the last town on the outskirts of 
civilization is Pretonia, about one hundred and fifty miles 
from Vnal. With the attention which has thus been called 
to Africa, the next twenty years will most probably lead 
