hieve results. Sometimes terrific
thunder-storms with torrents of rain would sweep through the valley. At
other times great hail-storms would drive both man and beast to the
nearest shelter. Wind-storms frequently drove blinding clouds of dust
that penetrated everything.

Very quickly a city of tents sprang up at Kimberley to be superseded
later by substantial buildings of wood, of brick and iron, and
well-constructed streets. Water was pumped from the Vaal River through a
main sixteen miles in length. It was then raised in three lifts by
powerful engines to a large reservoir five hundred feet above the river.

The introduction of an abundant supply of good water wrought a wonderful
transformation. Outside the business section the desert was made to
blossom with flowers in gardens surrounding the hitherto bleak homes.
Lawns were laid out and vines and trees planted about the houses, making
the dusty, wind-swept expanse a thing of beauty and comfort.

At length prospectors learned that the diamond-bearing earth was
confined chiefly to several oval-shaped funnels, ranging in area from
ten to twenty acres, and that outside these few diamonds were to be
found.

Now these huge funnels, or pipes, are nothing more or less than extinct
volcanic craters. The walls, or casings, of these pipes are chiefly of
shale and basalt filled with hard earth, yellow near the surface and
bluish deeper down. The latter is called "blue-stuff" and is very
prolific in diamonds. The diamonds found outside the rim wall must have
been washed out of the craters or perhaps were thrown out by the
eruption.

At first it was customary to pulverize the blue-stuff at once, but
experience showed that a more satisfactory way to work it was to expose
it for several months to the action of the weather. By this process it
readily crumbled.

Various devices were used by the different miners to raise the earth out
of their claims. Some used windlasses; others carried the earth up in
buckets and tubs, some even by climbing ladders. Surrounding the funnels
were carts, wheelbarrows, etc., for carrying away the material to the
depositing grounds, where it was dried, pulverized, and sifted.

Many of the miners found it desirable to employ the native Kafirs to
work in the pits, since neither the scorching sun nor clouds of dust
seemed to trouble them.

The deeper the pits were sunk the greater the difficulty became in
raising the blue-stuff. To add to the dif