The biggest man-made hole in the world
When I was a kid, my parents took me to see the Big Hole in Kimberley, in the Northern Cape Province. (There is a picture below. Give it time to download. It's worth clicking on to view the full size.)
The Big Hole was the first diamond mine in South Africa. It was mined to a depth of 215 metres, (700 feet) and with a surface area of about 17 hectares (42 acres) and a perimeter of about 1,6 km, it is the largest hand-dug excavation in the world. On 14 August 1914 work on the mine was suspended. By that time 22,5 million tons of earth had been excavated, yielding 2 722 kilograms (3 tons or 6,000 pounds) of diamonds.
The diamonds found here were formed in vertical pipes. The circular pipe reaches the surface on the farm which two Dutch settlers bought in 1871. The two brothers called Johannes Nicolaas and Diederik Arnoldus de Beer soon discovered the diamonds on their ground. This lead to a diamond rush, which made it impossible for them to keep the land. They were not able to protect it from the growing tide of intruders, so they sold it. And although they did not become the owners of the mines, one of the mines inherited their name and until today the diamond trade is connected with their names.
The history of the town of Kimberley started with the first diamond finds in South Africa in 1867. The farm boy Erasmus Jacobs had discovered an unusually glittering stone and brought it home for his sisters to play with. His parents had it analysed and identified as a diamond. But the big diamond rush only broke out three years later, when a whole handful of such stones was found on the farm Zandfontein, owned by the De Beers. More than 30,000 people came to the area, and the de Beers were happy to sell their otherwise not very profitable farm for 6,300 pounds.
Everywhere people feverishly started to dig for diamonds. The richest finds were made on the Colesberg Koppie, later the site of the Kimberley Mine. The hill, which had contained the first finds, was soon excavated and the prospectors had to drive a shaft into the earth. So, over the course of years, the deepest hole ever dug by man took shape.
The miners staked out claims and started digging but as they dug deeper into their separate holes, the earth began to collapse around them. Eventually they realized that they were undermining their own claims and they began to sell their stakes to Cecil John Rhodes and Charles Rudd who merged them, forming De Beers Consolidated Mines Limited in 1888. De Beers is the company which today controlls virtually all diamonds on Earth.
The Big Hole was the first diamond mine in South Africa. It was mined to a depth of 215 metres, (700 feet) and with a surface area of about 17 hectares (42 acres) and a perimeter of about 1,6 km, it is the largest hand-dug excavation in the world. On 14 August 1914 work on the mine was suspended. By that time 22,5 million tons of earth had been excavated, yielding 2 722 kilograms (3 tons or 6,000 pounds) of diamonds.
The diamonds found here were formed in vertical pipes. The circular pipe reaches the surface on the farm which two Dutch settlers bought in 1871. The two brothers called Johannes Nicolaas and Diederik Arnoldus de Beer soon discovered the diamonds on their ground. This lead to a diamond rush, which made it impossible for them to keep the land. They were not able to protect it from the growing tide of intruders, so they sold it. And although they did not become the owners of the mines, one of the mines inherited their name and until today the diamond trade is connected with their names.
The history of the town of Kimberley started with the first diamond finds in South Africa in 1867. The farm boy Erasmus Jacobs had discovered an unusually glittering stone and brought it home for his sisters to play with. His parents had it analysed and identified as a diamond. But the big diamond rush only broke out three years later, when a whole handful of such stones was found on the farm Zandfontein, owned by the De Beers. More than 30,000 people came to the area, and the de Beers were happy to sell their otherwise not very profitable farm for 6,300 pounds.
Everywhere people feverishly started to dig for diamonds. The richest finds were made on the Colesberg Koppie, later the site of the Kimberley Mine. The hill, which had contained the first finds, was soon excavated and the prospectors had to drive a shaft into the earth. So, over the course of years, the deepest hole ever dug by man took shape.
The miners staked out claims and started digging but as they dug deeper into their separate holes, the earth began to collapse around them. Eventually they realized that they were undermining their own claims and they began to sell their stakes to Cecil John Rhodes and Charles Rudd who merged them, forming De Beers Consolidated Mines Limited in 1888. De Beers is the company which today controlls virtually all diamonds on Earth.
posted by Joubert at 7:41 AM
The Alliance
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