ORIGIN lOF THE AMERICAN NEGRO. 
133 
The early Cape governors were not remarkable for their sym¬ 
pathy or friendliness for the Dutch settlers, and the grievances of 
the latter were seldom listened to. The fathers of the preesnt Dutch 
population in the Transvaal and Orange Free State quitted their 
home in the Cape Colony, and trekked into dangerous and unknown 
deserts to avoid what they conceived to be gross and burning 
wrongs. 
The desperate struggle of the Boers with the British was so 
recent that it needs nothing more than a mere mention here. The 
former Dutch Republic is now a British posession, but unusual 
liberties and independence have been granted all classes living there. 
THE DIAMOND MINES OF KIMBERLEY. 
The five diamond mines are all contained in a circle three and 
one-half miles in diameter. They are irregularly shaped, round or 
oval pipes, extending vertically downward to an unknown depth, 
retaining about the same diameter throughout. They are said to be 
volcanic necks, filled from below with a heterogeneous mixture of 
fragments of the surrounding rocks, and of older rocks, such as 
granite, mingled and cemented with a bluish colored hard clayey 
mass, in which famous blue clay the imbedded diamonds are hidden. 
In the first days of diamond mining there was no idea that 
diamondiferous earth extended to any particular depth, and miners 
were allowed to dig holes at haphazard, and prospect where they 
liked. When the Kimberley mine was discovered, a new arrange¬ 
ment was made, and in July, 1871, it was cut up into about 500 
claims, each 31 feet square, with spaces reserved for about fifteen 
roadways across the mine. No person at first could hold more than 
two claims, a rule afterwards modified. 
The system of underground working in recent years is as fol¬ 
lows : Shafts are sunk in the solid rock at a sufficient distance from 
the pipe to be quite safe against reef movements in the open mine. 
The main shaft at De Beers starts about 540 feet from the north 
side of the mine, and is now over 1,500 feet deep. Tunnels are 
driven from this shaft at different levels to cross the mine from 
west to east, about 120 feet apart. These tunnels are connected 
