RANSVESTIA

derneath it where all manner of things can be bought. The area is studded with mine dumps. Seems like the town was built over a gold deposit. We had hoped to be able to go down in a gold mine but there were not enough people available as they wanted a large group or none at all. We drove around the city which is very modern with some very unusual architecture.

With all the comments we get in this country about the apartheid practices of So. Africa it was with some surprise that we saw 3 or 4 tables of blacks having meals in the hotel dining room. There were even a couple of mixed race couples. We would think nothing of that here but it was a surprise to find it there. There were plenty of blacks on the streets and in shops, too. We drove out in the country towards Soweto (where the race riots oc- curred a couple of years ago). We didn't have time to go down into the town but it looked from the hill top like a pretty ordinary working class community spread over the rolling hills and served directly by the rapid transit system.

Next we drove to Pretoria stopping on the way to check out the famous Premier diamond mine. All mining is now done under ground, but we got a look at the enormous open pit that was originally mined until it got so deep that it was dangerous. We went into the building where the crushed base rock, called "Kimberlite" is washed over trays covered with grease. Rock is water wetted but diamonds are not. But they do not have an affinity for grease so the diamonds stick on the grease and the wet gravel passes over to be discarded. This is the mine which the famous Cullinan Diamond came from. We also saw a lot of rough stones as well as glass models of famous diamonds of the world. Most interesting.

Pretoria is the administrative capitol of the country and so we saw the usual government buildings, President's mansion and so forth. Just out of the city we visited the Vortrekker monument which was raied to commerorate the long migration of the Af-

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