First Systematic Search for the Diamonds

The first systematic digging and sifting of the ground were begun by a party of prospectors from Natal at the mission station of Hebron.

Continuing Diamonds Discovered in South Africa,
our selection from The Diamond Mines of South Africa by Gardner F. Williams published in 1902. The selection is presented in eight easy 5-minute installments. For works benefiting from the latest research see the “More information” section at the bottom of these pages.

Previously in Diamonds Discovered in South Africa.

Time: 1867
Place: Orange River, South Africa

For a stretch of a hundred miles above the mission-station at Pniel the river flows through a series of rocky ridges, rolling back from either bank to a tract of grassy, undulating plains. Fancy can scarcely picture rock-heaps more contorted and misshapen. Only prodigious subterranean forces could have so rent the earth’s crust and protruded jagged dikes of meta morphic, conglomerate, and amygdaloid rocks, irregularly traversed by veins of quartz, and heavily sprinkled with big bare bowlders of basalt and trap. Here the old lacustrine sedimentary formation of the South African high veld north of the Zwarte Bergen and Witte Bergen ranges has plainly been riven by volcanic upheaval. The shale and sandstone of the upper and lower karroo beds have been washed away down to an igneous rock lying between the shale and the sandstone. Along this stretch of the river the first considerable deposit of diamonds in South Africa was uncovered.

For more than a year since the discovery of the first diamond there had been some desultory scratching of the gravel along the Vaal by farmers and natives in looking for blink klippe, and a few little diamonds had been found by the Hottentots, as before noted. But the first systematic digging and sifting of the ground were begun by a party of prospectors from Natal at the mission station of Hebron. This was the forerunner of the second great trek to the Vaal from the Cape — a myriad of adventurers that spread down the stream like a locust swarm, amazing the natives, worrying the missionaries, and agitating the pioneer republics on the north and the east.

The first organized party of prospectors at Hebron on the Vaal was formed at Maritzburg in Natal, at the instance of Major Francis, an officer in the English Army Service, then stationed at that town. Captain Rolleston was the recognized leader, and after a long plodding march over the Drakensberg and across the veld, the little company reached the valley of the Vaal in November, 1869. Up to the time of its arrival there had been no systematic washing of the gravel edging the river. Two experienced gold-diggers from Australia, Glenie and King, and a trader, Parker, had been attracted to the field, like the Nata ians, by the reported discoveries, and were prospecting on the line of the river when Captain Rolleston’s party reached Hebron. Their prospecting was merely looking over the surface gravel for a possible gem, but the wandering Koranas were more sharp sighted and lucky in picking up the elusive little crystals that occasionally dotted the great stretches of alluvial soil.

It was determined by Captain Rolleston to explore the ground as thoroughly as practicable from the river’s edge for a number of yards up the bank, and the washing began on a tract near the mission-station. The Australian prospectors joined the party, and their experience in placer-mining was of service in conducting the search for diamonds. The workers shoveled the gravel into cradles, like those used commonly in Australian and American placer-washing, picked out the coarser stones by hand, washed away the sand and lighter pebbles, and saved the heavier mineral deposit, hoping to find some grains of gold as well as diamonds above the screens of their cradles. But the returns for their hard labor for many days were greatly disappointing. They washed out many crystals and brilliant pebbles, but never a diamond nor an atom of gold-dust. Then they passed down the river more than twenty miles to another camp at Klip-drift, opposite the mission-station at Pniel. Here, too, they washed the ground for days without finding even the tiniest gem and were almost on the point of abandoning their disheartening drudgery when, finally, on January 7, 1870, the first reward of systematic work in the field came in the appearance of a small diamond in one of the cradles.

This little fillip of encouragement determined their continuance of the work, and a party from the British Kaffraria joined them in washing the gravel in places that seemed most promising along the line of the river. It was agreed that the first discovery of rich diamond-bearing ground should be shared alike by both parties, but there was nothing to share for some weeks. Then some native Koranas were induced to point out to the Natalians a gravel-coated hummock or kopje near the Klip-drift camp, where they had picked up small diamonds. When the prospectors began the washing of the gravel on this kopje, it was soon apparent that a diamond-bed of extraordinary richness had been reached at last. Good faith was kept with the company from King William’s Town, and the combined parties worked to the top of their strength in shoveling and washing the rich bed. The lucky men kept their mouths closed, as a rule, and did not intend to make known their good fortune but such a discovery could not long be concealed from visiting traders and roaming prospectors, and before three months had passed some prying eye saw half a tumblerful of the white sparkling crystals in their camp, and the news spread fast that the miners had washed out from two hundred to three hundred stones ranging in size from the smallest gems to diamonds of thirty carats or more.

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