ORIGIN OF THE AMERICAN NEGRO. 
136 
versal in the workings. One set of workers attends to the rock- 
drilling machines for blasting the blue ground; in other parts the 
blue is shoveled into wagons, which, when filled, are carried along 
rails by moving ropes till they get to the gallery, where the contents 
are sent to the surface. 
At the bottom of the main shaft, at the 1,300-foot level, the 
galleries converge to a large open space where the tram lines car¬ 
rying the trucks meet. In front is a chute to which the trucks full 
of blue ground are rapidly wheeled, tipped over and their contents 
discharged, when they are shunted to make way for other trucks. 
At the foot of the shoot is a ‘"skip” holding 64 cubic feet, or four 
truck loads, an electric bell sounds at the engine-house, when the 
skip is hoisted to the surface and another takes its place. So the 
work proceeds, and on busy days ground has been hoisted at the 
rate of 20 loads every three minutes, equal to 400 loads an hour. 
In 1894 the record hoisting of blue ground at the Kimberley mine 
was 470 loads an hour; in one shift of eight hours 3,312 loads, and 
in a day of three shifts, 7,415 loads. 
WEIRD CREATURES DELVE FOR COSTLY GEMS. 
All below ground is dirty, muddy, grimy; half naked men, 
black as ebony, muscular as athletes, with perspiration oozing from 
every pore, are seen in every direction, hammering, picking, shovel¬ 
ing, wheeling the trucks to and fro, keeping up a weird chant, which 
rises in force and melody when a titanic task requires excessive 
muscular strain. The whole scene is far more suggestive of a coal 
mine than a diamond mine, and all this mighty organization, this 
strenuous expenditure of energy, this clever, costly machinery, this 
ceaseless toil of skilled and black labor, going on day and night, is 
just to win a few stones wherewith to deck my lady’s finger. 
The sorting room in the pulsator house is long, narrow and well 
lighted. Here the rich gravel is brought in wet, a sieveful at a time, 
and is dumped in a heap on tables covered with iron plates. 
The tables at one end take the coarsest lumps, next comes the 
gravel which passed the three-eighths-inch holes, then the next in 
order, and so on. The first sorting is done by thoroughly trust- 
