THE CHINA MAIL, MAY 21, 1938.
NEW "KLONDIKE" FOUND Women Peg Claims In Diamond Rush
Richest Deposits
In
18 Years
Kimberley, May 11.
With all the excitement but none of the mad hurly-burly of the Klondike gold rush in the Yukon of forty-one years ago, 918 men and women yester- day staked claims to possible fortune on a new South African diamond field fifty-seven miles from Kimberley.
The diamond deposits are on a farm called Thorney Gulch and are reported to be the richest deposits found for eighteen years.
They collected for the ballot; then, as numbers and names
-KLONDIKE
It was a year before news of a fisherman's gold discovery in 1896 in the frozen Yukon spread round the world and the Klondike Gold Rush be- gan....
Bank clerks, adventurers, prospectors, women flocked to the Yukon from all over Ameri- ca and Europe, founded Daw- son City, Gold dust was cur- rency for whisky and gam- bling.... Guns. settled bad debts.
saloon
Cold, hunger and brawls killed hundreds of people in this great quest for fortune.
But by 1910 the richest gravels were worked out. Daw- son City's population dwindled · The from 30,000 to 2,000.
search moved to Alaska.
adventures. North of the farm, across the wide Vaal River, is "Smith's Prospect." "Winter Rush,”. "Delpoort's Hope."
come
Mr. Roux told me that some of the men digging last night carried all they possess in a ruck-sack. Al- so digging and washing, the blue ground were men who had hundreds of miles from the Golden Rand, Johannesburg, from moun- tainous Natal, and southerly parts of the green Cape of Good Hope.
Thorney Gulch means certain money to several hundred men who hurried there without the slightest intention of digging for diamonds. Already they have set themselves up as car-mechanics, grocers, ready-made clothes sellers, and restaurant-keepers.
There will not be many bara. The South African Government are strict about that sort of thing.
A great number of natives have arrived at the diggings. They are there to sell the only thing they have their labour. It is often Watched by nearly 3,-the black labourer who makes the
.
Instead of a Klondike stampede this evening," he said. I can see there was a ballot which had been the 'diggings' from my office. They advertised by the South African | are all working like mad-plan Government.
to carry on all night. Some of All those staking claims had to them have got old oil lamps, and buy a 5s. Government permit. others, who came in fine motor
caravans, have got electric light" his claim.
Farmer Oosthuizen was among 000 men, women and children he big find. were picked out of a drum the them, a happy man. As discoverer hammered his claim-pegs into the A coloured man, Johannes, was lucky diggers went forward one he was given by the Government ground-marking off fortune or working for by one and staked their claims. fifty claims free of licence money, No. 7 to be called was a twenty-and, as holder of Thorney Gulch, five-year-old widow, Saanie Jor-another twenty claims. daan.
First man to find a diamond af- ter the official proclamation ап elderly Englishman named Charlie Waterford,
Mr.
Roux told me; "Charlie Waterford found a stone
WIDOW MAKES HER CHOICE The six men before her had staked claims right in the centre
was
despair....
"ALL WE NEEDED"
Only thirteen policemen-armed with revolvers were at Thorney Gulch. "That was all we needed," said Mr. Roux. "All the claims had been staked by 7.80 on the Mrs. Jordaan looked carefully surface. at their pegs.
It was three or four evening." She found that times bigger than a pin-head. the men had in their excite-worth about 3s, I should say."
of the "field."
ment overlooked half a claim For Mr. Roux the day began at almost at the exact centre. It 5 a.m. looked like one piece taken out of a complete jig-saw. With a smile she took this half.
HOPELESS JOB
He tried to line up the 918 people Other women accompanied by with permits, but it was a hopeless their husbands, helped to stake job-they were too excited to queue the claims.
quietly, As the ballot began Diamonds were first discovered there was tenseness. A loud- at Thorney Gulch by the old Afrikaner named Oosthuizen who farmed-it. He-found-tiny "stones" lying on the surface.
speaker was used to call the ticket- holders out: "No. 1, No. 2, No. 3., . .”-
An experienced Kimberley dig- "ALL WORKING LIKE MAD"
ger drew ticket No. 1.
About 2,000 people were at Government inspectors arrived. Thorney Gutch as spectators. They As Thorney Gulch is Government had travelled along with the per- land, arrangements were made for mit-holders-their wives and an organised "rush" confined to friends-to keep camp for them: people living in the province, the Cape of Good Hope.
The "rush" began at 9-a.m. yes- terday.
They and the 918 diggers were kept off the "field" by ropes.
When No. 1 went out—all alone— everybody was silent for a moment. They all watched him.
Last night I spoke by telephone to the Government Mining Commis- No. 1 walked quickly over. the sioner, Mr. Johnny Roux, in his bare, open veld-so quickly that he wood-and-iron office at Thorney stumbled....
Gulch, 7,000 miles from London. This solitary figure solemnly "All claims were pegged by 7.30 looked about him and decided on
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'DETTOL
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this
an old afrikaner, Jacobus Jonker, on a claim north of Pretoria four years
ago. Johannes was working alone in a muddy hole when he picked up a stone that filled his hand-the Jonker diamond, the world's fourth largest.
They will be thinking about Johannes and Jonker as they dig at Thorney Gulch to-day--they will Around Thorney Gulch are tiny remember that Jonker sold his dia- wood-and-iron villages whose names mond to Sir Ernest Oppenheimer remind one of by-gone prospectors'{ for £61,000.
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