THE GREAT KIMBERLEY DIAMOND MINE. 
93 
NOTES ON THE GREAT KIMBERLEY DIAMOND MINE * 
By W. P. Marshall, M.I.C.E. 
The diamond field of South Africa is situated in the 
northern part of Cape Colony, adjoining the Orange Free 
State and the Transvaal; at about 400 miles distance by road 
and railway from the south-east coast at Port Elizabeth, and 
about 650 miles from Cape Town on the south-west coast, 
the capital of the Colony. This district is quite unique, and 
the most remarkable one known for the produce of diamonds 
and for the circumstances of the ground in which the 
diamonds are found, and there are several points of special 
interest connected with it. 
Besides the Kimberley diamond mine there are three 
others in the immediate neighbourhood—Du Toit’s Pan, 
De Beers, and Bultfontein; these are larger in surface 
extent than the Kimberley mine, but the latter is the one of 
most importance, and has been worked to the greatest depth 
and in the most systematic manner. There are also two 
other diamond mines in the Orange Free State, at about 40 
miles distance from Kimberley. 
The Kimberley mine is worked by a number of diamond 
mining companies, under conditions from the Government 
of the Colony, and now forms a great conical pit of irregular 
outline 450ft. deep and nearly a quarter of a mile across at 
the top. In Plate II. is shown an approximate sketch of the 
vertical section and plan of the mine; and this drawing and 
the following paper have been mainly prepared from infor¬ 
mation supplied by Mr. H. Kenneth Austin, who has 
recently returned from the district, having been engaged 
upon the Cape Government Eailways. 
Fig. 1 is a plan showing the division into separate claims. 
Fig. 2 is an approximate section of the mine at the beginning of the 
working. 
Fig. 3 is a corresponding section at the present time, showing the 
450ft. depth of excavation of the mine. 
The first diamonds of the South African field were found 
sixteen years ago in the bed of the River Vaal, near the border 
of the Transvaal State, and in adjoining ground washed by 
mountain streams forming sandy and gravel deposits in 
which diamonds were picked up. These “River Diggings,” 
and the searching of the top gravel on the river banks, were 
carried on for some years in that locality, at about twenty- 
four miles north of Kimberley ; and extended irregularly 
* Transactions of the Birmingham Natural History and Micro¬ 
scopical Society. Read February 26tli, 1884. 
