Читать книгу The History of Mining - Michael Coulson - Страница 64

Up until 1880 the mining of the New Rush pit, and indeed the other pits around Kimberley, had been largely based on small diggers, some of them even black natives, although that was a situation that did not last long with ownership restrictions forcing out native claims holders; one of the earlier harbingers of the apartheid system.

As the diggers went deeper two problems arose. The first was that the rich near-surface material, which consisted of light, easily dug soil, gave way to what was called blue ground, which was much more compacted and needed increased effort to break up. Also, as digging descended into the blue ground the dug material appeared to be very low in diamonds. For a while despair reigned and many diggers gave up, selling their claims for virtually nothing. It is interesting to note that no exploration drilling took place in this era; when metals or minerals were found on the surface miners staked claims, set up a basic digging operation and continued to mine until the mineralised ore ran out. As the Kimberley diggers went into the blue ground they had no idea what lay beneath. As it was, the new deeper material became extremely productive. The scare was over but many small claims holders had already fled the diggings.

But now another major problem arose which created opportunities for the likes of Joseph Robinson. The deeper the diggings went the more costly was extraction and the more precarious the individual claims became, with water inrushes and earth collapses becoming common at greater depths. The era of amalgamation was looming and the future giants of the South African diamond mining industry were gathering; they included Robinson, Barnato and Rhodes.