It is a fascinating but ultimately futile exercise to speculate on what sort of country South Africa would have become if the processes at work before 1860 had continued under the same conditions. But this was not to be. In 1867, on the banks of the Vaal River just above its confluence with the Gariep, the Boers and the Griquas began to find diamonds. From then on, mining, and the industry associated with it, would always be at the centre of South African economic, social and political life.

The initial alluvial diggings on the river banks would not have had the capacity to bring about such a change. Within a few years, however, in four locations close to each other between the Vaal and the Gariep, volcanic pipes were discovered in which, in the distant past, diamonds had crystallised. These pipes, up to twelve hectares on the surface and tapering down to less than two and a half deep in the ground, were of effectively unlimited capacity. Between them, the town of Kimberley developed rapidly, to become within a few years the second-largest settlement in Southern Africa, producing 80 per cent of the region's exports.

The mines were in an area which had been claimed by both the Orange Free State and the Griquas of Griquatown. The area was soon annexed together with the rest of Griqualand – strictly speaking Griqualand West – by the Cape Colony, which was able to claim that the border with the Free State ran, not altogether coincidentally, about a mile to the east of the mines. The mining ground in each pipe was parcelled out into a large number of claims, 470 initially in the Kimberley mine, each of about 90 square metres, and even these were sold off in portions until the smallest were less than 30 square metres in area.