Mindblown: a blog about philosophy.

FEW people recognize the influence which the diamond has had in the world’s affairs. Generally it is regarded as a bauble simply: a star to shine in the lighter realms of love and pleasure, but outside the plane of rugged forces which are supposed to govern the serious interests of life. Yet a moment’s reflection […]

The greatest known diamond mine in the world is the Premier of the Transvaal, South Africa. In extent it is nearly as large as the four De Beers Consolidated Mines combined, and though the yield of diamonds per load of diamondiferous material is not now as great as that of some others, its yield in […]

The Wesselton, or Premier, as it was first called, takes its name from J. J. Wessels, Sen., the owner of the Benaaudheidfontein farm, on which it was discovered, in September, 1890. It is situated about one mile south of the Dutoitspan, in Cape Colony, on the border of the Orange River Colony; formerly, the Orange […]

This mine is in the Orange River Colony, formerly the Orange Free State, near Fauresmith and the Riet river, and about eighty miles south and a little east of Kimberley. It was discovered about the same time as the Kimberley mines, and a controlling interest in it was secured by the De Beers Consolidated Mines […]

The Kimberley diamond mine is situated at the city of Kimberley in the Griqualand West district of Cape Colony, South Africa, in lat. 28° 43 S. and long. 24° 46 E. By rail it is 647 miles northeast of Cape Town and 485 miles north of Port Elizabeth. It is a few miles from the […]

The De Beers diamond mine is about one mile east from the Kimberley and in the central part of the city of Kimberley. In extent it is 958 feet east and west by 630 feet north and south and the original locations covered a surface equal to 622 claims or 13.72 acres. It was in […]

Rumors had come to the ear of Cornelis du Plooy on his farm, the Bultfontein, that north of him toward the Vaal river, men were picking stones out of the earth and selling them for money, sometimes getting more for one stone than a man would have to pay for a tract of land larger […]

DIAMONDS had been found in the dry bed of a stream on the Jagersfontein in August, but the first opening on a diainondiferous volcanic pipe in Africa was made in 1870, when prospectors discovered diamonds on the Du Toit’s Pan, owned by a Boer farmer named Van Wyk. After trying in vain to regulate the […]

FROM the discovery of diamonds in Africa until 1884, there are no records by which one may know with certainty what the production was, either in weight or in value. The probability is that up to and including 1873, it was not over one million carats. From 1874 to 1883, however, there was a very […]

IN writing the history of any important movement in the world’s affairs, it is difficult to find the beginning of it. A turn of the lever will set a machine in motion if there is sufficient steam back of it. Similarly, the momentous results which sometimes follow a trivial action, would not happen but for […]