Fifty thousand men, picks and shovels, and 13.6 million carats
Diamonds were found on Colesberg Kopje on the De Beers brothers’ farm in 1871, and what followed is still argued to be the largest hole ever dug by hand. From mid-1871 to 1914 as many as 50,000 men worked it with picks and shovels and took out 2,720 kilograms of diamonds, about 13.6 million carats. The pit covers 17 hectares and is 463 metres across. They cut it 240 metres deep, then the debris and about 40 metres of standing water filled part of it back in, leaving roughly 175 metres of open hole to look into. When working from above got too dangerous to continue, Cecil Rhodes’s De Beers followed the kimberlite pipe underground to 1,097 metres instead. The town of Kimberley grew around the rim and the mine museum stands there now.
Northern Cape, South Africa
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