Identifier: sciencerecordcom1874beac (find matches)
Title: The Science record; a compendium of scientific progress and discovery
Year: 1872 (1870s)
Authors: Beach, Alfred Ely, 1826-1896
Subjects: Technology Industrial arts
Publisher: New York, Munn
Contributing Library: Smithsonian Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: Smithsonian Libraries

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is a pleasanter place for sorting thanthe dry diggings, owing to the absence of dust; still it hasits Objections. The sorters suffer severely from coldsometimes, and, at best, sitting with ones feet in wet gravelall day is far from comfortable. The gravel is spread thinly over the level surface ofwood or metal that serves as a table. The sorter detectsat a glance any diamond or other stone that he may wishto preserve, then strikes off the rest with a straight-edgeof wood or metal, usually a short piece of hoop-iron.Occasionally a valuable ruby or a sapphire is found inthese riverside diggings. Some do their washing on theirclaims, especially when working alone or with a singlepartner, or when too poor to own a cart and team. Thewashing is done in a couple of tubs made by sawing a wine-cask in two, and filled with water from the stream. If theearth is tolerably dry, the gravel can be cleaned in part bydry sifting; it is then placed in common hand-sieves and GEOLOGY AND MINERALOGY. 539
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twirled in one tub until tolerably free from dirt, and rinsedquite clean in the other. When the tubs become toomuddy, they are refilled from the river and the washinggoes on. The claims at this place are worked to the depth 540 SCIENCE RECORD. of thirty or forty feet, turning the hill-slope upside downand covering it with heaps of quarried stone. The dry diggings are wide, almost treeless and waterless,plains covered with calcareous soil, which from its dustynature adds immensely to the miners discomfort. Theearliest finds away from the river were made in 1870, atDu Toits Pan. At first the claims were worked only twoor three feet below the surface ; after this surface-earthwas worked out, and the diggers were looking about forpastures new, some one had courage to penetrate thebottom rock, and was rewarded by finding the diamondsmore numerous and of larger size as he descended. Arush then set in, and Du Toits Pan soon became thelargest and richest diamond camp in the world; no otherpla

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