While men were busily engaged in scraping away among the pebbles of the Vaal River, _prospecting_ was going on some twenty miles southward. The first dry diggings struck were those of Du Toit’s Pan in the middle of 1870, which were worked chiefly by the Dutch, who at that time never thought of testing the ground to a greater depth than eighteen inches or two feet, and who, when they came upon calcareous tufa, abandoned their operations. Shortly afterward, on the adjoining farm, Bulfontein, and within gunshot range of Du Toit’s Pan, diamonds were found in the very plaster which lined the walls of the homestead. Hearing this, many diggers moved over from Du Toit’s Pan and proved the diamondiferous character of this farm, the returns from which, however, were found not to be equal to those of the former place, while a month or two later another diggings named Old De Beers, and situated about a couple of miles north of Du Toit’s Pan, were also opened up. An occurrence which has proved of absorbing interest to the whole of South Africa took place about this time. In July a young man of the name of Rawstorne, who came up from Colesberg in the Cape Colony, was out shooting, and becoming somewhat weary, rested himself under the shades of a thorn bush, and scratching the ground, from, force of habit and to pass the time away, unearthed a beautiful diamond. Highly elated with his unexpected success, when he returned after his day’s amusement to his friends at Old De Beers, he told them of his luck. Next day, the news having got abroad, the locality was “rushed” and hundreds of claims pegged out. The other diggings very soon became practically deserted. Men packed up their belongings, moved their tents, and sought the “New Rush,” and, almost as if by magic, in the very place where but a few days before deer had been quietly browsing, hundreds of diggers could be seen. This famous “Kopje” is now the Kimberley mine, the richness of which it is impossible to estimate. When this mine was first opened the claims were laid out in an oblong of 30 from north to south and 28 from east to west, making in all upon the original plan 840 claims of 30 feet square (Rhynland measure), giving 961 English square feet to each claim. After the whole of the claims were measured and given out, hundreds of others were marked off and worked. Some were very soon abandoned as worthless, but others equally worthless were worked, the owners for some time hoping that a change for the better would take place, and that they would become remunerative. These extended far into the present site of the township, and much valuable time was lost in testing them.