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17th February 2015 - The Kimberly Diamond Industry Nick Trevor
At their recent Biggar Probus Club meeting, one of the club`s members Nick
Trevor took the company through a most interesting illustrated history of the
Kimberly Diamond industry in South Africa. Nick himself once worked at the
mines.He explained in detail how diamond bearing clay was extracted from the
four clay `pipes` discovered at Kimberlay. The town itself was almost 1000
miles north of Capetown, in a flat, dry, windy, hot desert. Early
prospectors were not put off, and even panned for diamonds in the main river
passing south. At that time there were no roads or railroad, only horse and
cart. The numerous licences issued called for a more rigorous approach, and Nick
demonstrated the development of the mines from their discovery in 1872 and
literally scratching at the surface, to today`s largest hole in the world. The
town`s infrastructure developed and the original street trams still run !
Unfortunately Nick had no free samples to hand out. Robert kirkhope gave
the vote of thanks, and President Ian Dewar invited club members to attend the
next meeting on Tuesday third March when our guest speaker would be Robert
Nimmo on a Pilgrimage to Santiago di Compostella
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