Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 39, Number 90, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 July 1907 — TONS OF DIAMONDS. [ARTICLE]

TONS OF DIAMONDS.

An Estimate on the Output of the Mines "6f the World. Like all precious metals and stones, the unit Of weight usually employed in regard to diamonds is of which 151% go to make up a single ounce. To think of sacks of diamonds by the ton staggers the imagination; indeed, the average annual output of the Kimberley mines is not more than half a ton all told. Statistics have been published;recently at Cape Town giving the output for several years past of the Kimberley mines and the river diggings. These yielded in the three years 190305 nearly 7,250.000 carats, say a ton and a half. The monetary value of these diamonds was £10,450,000. Since the first diamond was discovered by the banks of-the Vaakin 1567 down to me end of 1906 it is estimated that the total "weight of diamonds extracted from the Griquaiand mines is oyer 13% tens, of a market value of fully £95,000,000. If statistics, of this sort, can be trusted—and in the case of the South African yield they closely approximate to the facts —only 17 tons of diamonds had been mined all over the world to the end of 1901. With the same relative output since -that year from Brazil and India the world's output of diamonds is now more than 20 tons., The figure seems small, considering the ages~dTamdn drTiaye been“worked in India and elsewhere in the east, and must be largely guesswork with respect to the output in antiquity. It is, however, certain that more diamonds have been placed on the market in the last 40 than in the previous thousand years.—Pall Mall Gazette.