Big Hole

By the mid-1880s, therefore, you had companies that owned groups of claims inside a particular mine, while the word mine referred to the entire diamond-bearing pipe or the working area.

So, if you were standing in Kimberley in 1886 and somebody said, I'm working in the Kimberley mine, that did not necessarily mean he or she worked for a company called Kimberley Mine.

He may have worked for Kimberley Central or the French company or Standard or one of the smaller interests that still held claims there.

The mine was the physical hole in the ground.

Someone had to control the flow of diamonds, and that meant a monopoly.

For an amalgamation scheme to work, one man would have to sit at the top of the pyramid of diamond companies, either Barney Barnato or Cecil Rhodes.

Both were eyeing the one major company left by 1887, called the French Company, that was based inside the Kimberley mine.

Actually, its full name was the Compagnie Française des Mines de Diamants du Cap de Bonne Espérance, French Company of the Diamond Mines of the Cape of Good Hope.

Yeah, I was just there

Uh, over by the Big Hole.

Yeah, I fished the Big Hole.

I was just there a couple weeks ago.

Loved it, by the ...

The left does

... know, uh, uh, I, I happen to know Wred Emerson, which is owner of Sierra Pacific, and Ellington Peak, which is the owner of Shasta Livestock, and traded more cattle and brokered more cattle than anybody in the US.

Well, one of the big problems, Jeff, as you know, the Big Hole, for example, the Big Hole River, beautiful river, uh, much of that water gets diverted to agriculture, and so there are challenges.