and about one mile from Old de Beers. Kimberley itself is about twenty-two miles to the south-east of Klip drift, and is the most important of the four mines I have mentioned, being that where the greatest numbers of diamonds of all qualities are found. The stones found at Dutoitspan are valued very much on account of their very bright yellow colour, those obtained at Bultfontein being generally smaller, but equal in purity to the “river-stones.”
Diamond-mines vary in depth from forty-five to 200 feet, and may be from 200 to 700 yards in diameter. The diggings are locally called “kopjes,” being divided into “claims,” which are either thirty feet square, or thirty feet long by ten feet wide; of these a digger may hold any number from one to twenty, but he is required to work them all. For the ordinary “claim” the monthly payment generally amounts to about twenty florins for ground-rent and for water-rate, made to the Government and to a Mining Board, which consists of a committee of diggers appointed to overlook the working of the whole. In Dutoitspan and Bultfontein there is an additional tax paid to the proprietors, i. e. the owners of the farms; but in the Kimberley and Old de Beers group the Government has purchased all rights of possession from the firm of Ebden and Co.
I have little doubt in my own mind that these pits are the openings of mud craters, but I am not of opinion that the four diggings are branches of the same crater; it is only a certain resemblance
