No. 4

For 18 years bearded old Jacobus J. Jonker got poorer, greyer and dingier washing South African gravel in the prospector's enduring hope of someday finding a diamond as big as an egg at his feet. Three miles away from his miserable diggings at Elandsfontein another prospector had found the Cullinan Diamond, big as an orange, one hot January day in 1905. A $5,000 find several years ago enabled Jacobus Jonker to hire a black Kaffir boy to do his digging. One of the Jonker sons was watching the black one day last week when the Kaffir threw his hat in the air, screamed: "Good baas [master], I found it!"

"It," a flawless blue-white diamond big as a small egg (726 carats) became at once the world's No. 4 diamond.*

Said Jonker next day: "I entrust everything of value to my wife. That night we bound the diamond in a cloth and tied it around my wife's neck. I saw her to bed after carefully locking and barring all the windows and doors except the front door. There my two sons, myself and two friends kept guard with loaded revolvers until dawn. Then I handed the diamond for safekeeping to the manager of the Premier Diamond Mine." Hastily last week Prospector Jonker sold his precious find to Sir Ernest Oppenheimer, board chairman of South Africa's Diamond Corp., Ltd., for $312,000.

Digger Jonker planned to buy first a top hat and frock coat, then a sheep farm, then "a good present for Johannes," the Kaffir who screamed "Good baas!"

Experts last week christened the new diamond the "Jonker Stone," guessed that it may be a lost chip off its onetime neighbor, the Cullinan. The Cullinan made nine big stones of which the two biggest are now in the King of England's sceptre and crown.

*No. 1, Cullinan (3,025 k); No. 2, Excelsior (969 1/2 k); No. 3. Great Mogul (787 k.).

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