![]() ![]() The first diamond was found by a child in 1866 or 1867. Stahl, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. REPORTER AT LARGE about the history of diamond mining in and around Kimberley, South Africa. Meanwhile, Pillay said that the search area posed a threat to grazing cattle because it was pocked with numerous holes, some as deep as one meter.Ĭredit: Image by Michael J. KWAHLATHI (AFP) - Single mother Lihle Magudulela spat out a mouthful of dirt as she sucked on a stone dug up from a hillside in South Africa's KwaZulu-Natal province. While most of the amateur miners packed up their belongings and headed home, about 500 stayed on the site, convinced that the stones had real value and that the government officials may not have been telling the truth. John O’Reilly finding diamonds in the 1850s sparked what is known as the diamond rush. Before the rush to discover diamonds, many of the indigenous people of Africa already used these diamonds as simple tools. The quartz crystals mined at the site in Ladysmith carried little or no value. A small western area of the Republic of the Orange Free State is home to many of the diamond mines of South Africa. Quartz is the second-most-abundant mineral on planet Earth, just behind feldspar. “The tests conducted conclusively revealed that the stones discovered in the area are not diamonds as some had hoped,” said Ravi Pillay, a provincial executive council member for economic development and tourism. Sadly, those dreams were dashed when a local official announced on Sunday that the rare “diamonds” of Ladysmith were merely quartz crystals. The last families abandoned the town to the. The initial phase of South Africa’s diamond rush, which saw ten thousand prospectors converge on the Vaal River between 18, proved a failure scarcely one year into operation. In fact, the largest diamond ever discovered - the 3,106-carat Cullinan - was unearthed in 1905 about 400km northwest of Ladysmith, near Pretoria.Īrmed with picks and shovels, people from across the country rushed to the eastern KwaZulu-Natal province, where a 50-hectare (123-acre) search area became a field of dreams. When diamond deposits were found 270km (168 miles) to the south, close to Namibia’s border with South Africa, many of Kolmanskop’s miners moved on. diamond rush, hordes of prospectors converged on the Diamond Fields. The country currently hosts seven major diamond mines and generates more than 7 million carats per year. Fields - Information about Diamond Fields in the Northern Cape, South Africa. The resulting “diamond rush” was supported by the fact that South Africa has been a world leader in diamond production for the past 150 years. ![]() This was the hard lesson learned by 3,000 fortune seekers who descended on Ladysmith, South Africa, early last week after a cattle herder stumbled upon a large clear crystal that appeared to be a diamond. In the world of fine gemstones, looks can sometimes be deceiving. ![]()
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