Jerome Lewellyn Babe (February 4, 1837 – April 8, 1893) was an American diamond miner and inventor.

Biography

Babe, an American, arrived in the

Cape Colony The Cape Colony (), also known as the Cape of Good Hope, was a British Empire, British colony in present-day South Africa named after the Cape of Good Hope. It existed from 1795 to 1802, and again from 1806 to 1910, when it united with three ...

(modern-day South Africa) circa 1865 as a sales representative for the

Winchester Repeating Arms Company The Winchester Repeating Arms Company was a prominent American manufacturer of repeating firearms and ammunition. The firm was established in 1866 by Oliver Winchester and was located in New Haven, Connecticut. The firm went into receivership ...

and also as a special correspondent for the ''

New York World The ''New York World'' was a newspaper published in New York City from 1860 to 1931. The paper played a major role in the history of American newspapers as a leading national voice of the Democratic Party. From 1883 to 1911 under publisher Jo ...

''. He arrived in

Colesberg Colesberg is a town with 17,354 inhabitants in the Northern Cape province of South Africa, located on the main N1 road from Cape Town to Johannesburg. In a sheep-farming area spread over half-a-million hectares, greater Colesberg breeds ma ...

, Cape Colony on June 12, 1870 and by July 4 was at

Jacobsdal Jacobsdal is a small farming town in the Free State province of South Africa with various crops under irrigation, such as grapes, potatoes, lucerne, and groundnuts. The town was laid out in 1859 by Christoffel Jacobs on his farm Kalkfontein, an ...

Orange Free State The Orange Free State ( ; ) was an independent Boer-ruled sovereign republic under British suzerainty in Southern Africa during the second half of the 19th century, which ceased to exist after it was defeated and surrendered to the British Em ...

. At Jacobsdal he demonstrated the 1866 .44 Henry

Winchester rifle Winchester rifle is a comprehensive term describing a series of lever action repeating rifles manufactured by the Winchester Repeating Arms Company. Developed from the 1860 Henry rifle, Winchester rifles were among the earliest repeaters. Th ...

's quick firing by shooting 16 rounds in ten seconds, resulting in a large number of sales. Once he completed his work for Winchester and the newspaper, Babe found that he had several months before his scheduled return journey. He decided to enter into diamond mining, having previously had experience prospecting in

California California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...

. This was soon after the first discovery of diamonds in the region. Babe was unimpressed with the technique that was then in use on the diamond fields, of excavating a quantity of gravel and then removing it to the nearest water source, often some distance away, for washing and screening. He devised a type of dry sorting pan that could sort diamonds from the gravel without the use of water. This machine was first used at the

Vaal River The Vaal River ( ; Khoemana: ) is the largest tributary of the Orange River in South Africa. The river has its source near Breyten in Mpumalanga province, east of Johannesburg and about north of Ermelo and only about from the Indian Oce ...

field in 1871 and became known as the "Yankee Baby" or simply the "Baby" after Babe's surname. The machine became very popular and was still in use in the region in 1966. The "Baby" functioned as a swinging sieve (underneath a coarser sieve which separates out the larger pebbles), which allows medium-sized pebbles (which may contain diamonds) to roll into a tub. The contents of the tub are gravitated, and the heavier stones are placed on a sorting table to allow the diamonds to be hand-picked out. Sales of the Baby, income from excavating diamonds, sales of diamonds purchased from other miners, and profits from "grubstakes" (whereby he earned a cut of profits from miners to whom Babe provided capital, materials or provisions) made Babe a fortune. In 1872, he was in the eastern United States where he published a book titled ''The South African Diamond Fields''. This work was mentioned in a discussion on potential rivals by

Mark Twain Samuel Langhorne Clemens (November 30, 1835 – April 21, 1910), known by the pen name Mark Twain, was an American writer, humorist, and essayist. He was praised as the "greatest humorist the United States has produced," with William Fau ...

in a letter to journalist

John Henry Riley John is a common English name and surname: * John (given name) * John (surname) John may also refer to: New Testament Works * Gospel of John, a title often shortened to John * First Epistle of John, often shortened to 1 John * Second Ep ...

. Babe was robbed of $10,000 worth of diamonds from a

stagecoach A stagecoach (also: stage coach, stage, road coach, ) is a four-wheeled public transport coach used to carry paying passengers and light packages on journeys long enough to need a change of horses. It is strongly sprung and generally drawn by ...

York, Pennsylvania York is a city in York County, Pennsylvania, United States, and its county seat. Located in South Central Pennsylvania, the city's population was 44,800 at the time of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, making it the List of cities in ...

in July 1872. After returning to the Cape, his ventures became unprofitable and, after losing his money, he returned to America in 1873. Babe was married to Elanora Ray Babe, who died on May 28, 1893, less than two months after him.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Babe, Jerome 1837 births 1893 deaths Cape Colony businesspeople 19th-century American inventors American male journalists American miners People from Cincinnati Inventors from Ohio