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FIRE IN THE EARTH
men, burrowing like moles in the earth, sent thousands of tons of blue ground up the shaft.
But today the Kimberley mine is dead. It extends thirty-six hundred feet below the surface. The pipe is honey­combed with galleries below the pit. There is no bottom to it. But it holds a lake. It is the biggest hole man ever made in the earth, and a hole that tossed up the greatest wealth man ever visualized.
But what created it in the first place? Ages ago, a mass of fmolten rock existed in the depths of the earth, miles below the present site of the mine. We already know how heat and pressure were forcing crystallization of the rock. Seeth­ing with gases, the fiery mass developed tremendous pres­sure and began to work its way to the surface through cracks and fissures. One of these cracks, weaker than the rest, gave way and a mighty explosion shattered the earth's crust, boring a clean round hole to the surface. Molten rock began to well up in the hole and spread over the land surface. The mountain cooled and hardened, and through countless millions of years the streams ate away its flanks until it was leveled off. So the pipe was the root of an old volcano. Where once the mountain reared its lofty head was now the flat South African veldt, and the diamonds from its upper layers went down the Vaal and the Orange rivers, some of them coming to rest on the desert coast of far-off Namaqualand.
Now let us forget about what Nature did and see what man has done, what he is doing to bring diamonds out of the earth. You must visit one of the great pipe mines of the De Beers Consolidated Mines in South Africa to find out. It is a thrilling experience. Barbed-wire entanglements, charged with electricity, surround the entire mining area. Armed guards patrol the barriers night and day. Even spe-
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