Discoveries and Inventions of the Nineteenth Century

value of £330. The gold which is embedded in quartz and other minerals, as shown in Fig. 330, is obtained by crushing the material in stamping machines, which are usually constructed with logs of wood shod with iron. In another form of crushing-mill two large cast-iron rollers are used instead of stampers. 692From the crushed material the particles of gold are extracted by amalgamation with mercury, which is afterwards removed by distillation. The richness of the Victoria gold-fields may be inferred from the fact that, up to the year 1868, 36,835,692 oz. had been obtained, the value of which is no less than £147,342,767. The total value of the gold then annually obtained throughout the whole world is estimated at about 20 millions of pounds sterling. When gold was found so plentifully in California and Australia, it was supposed by some that its value as a monetary standard would be affected. This has not happened, although the prices obtained for the metal by its producers were considerably lower in the last decade of the century than about 1867. The total annual output of gold throughout the world is of course variable, and no doubt there are also variations in the demand; but, so far, the fluctuations have been relatively small, and there has been no such depreciation by excess of production as in the case of silver. Yet the increased production of gold after the discoveries made about the middle of the century was beyond precedent. It has been estimated that between 1850 and 1875 the total value amounted to £600,000,000, showing an annual average twelve times greater than that for the period between 1700 and 1850. Between 1875 and 1890 there was a falling off in the supply, the annual average becoming only £20,000,000 in value. But since the last-named date there has been a rise year by year, and at the close of the century the value of the gold produced throughout the world in one year may not be less than £40,000,000. As already remarked, the distribution of gold is world-wide; and it has happened in recent times, that just as one source of supply has shown signs of failure, other fields have been discovered and have attracted thousands of eager seekers to new regions. So, when the Californian supply was falling off, there came the rush to Australia, where easily worked alluvial deposits or rich veins continued for years to reward the toil of the gold-finder, though in an ever-lessening degree, until in 1886 or 1887 the centre of attraction was shifted. But at a later period fresh discoveries in Australia again raised the productiveness of that quarter; and still more recently, the announcement of the existence of much auriferous deposit in the valley of the Yukon River (Klondyke), and in various localities of British Columbia, drew thousands to desolate and undeveloped districts, in spite of the extremities of hardship and destitution that might be endured. The discovery of 1886 takes us to South Africa, a region with which also our next section is mainly concerned, and the scene of an activity unprecedented in the annals of gold-mining. From circumstances immediately connected with our present subject, the close of our century finds public attention intensely occupied with affairs at the austral extremity of the “dark continent.” The history of South Africa, from the time when, in 1486, the tempest-driven Portuguese mariner, Bartholomew Diaz, first struck its shores at the promontory he named the “Cape of Storms” (Cabo Tormentoso), and when, eleven years afterwards, the celebrated Vasco de Gama sailed round it on his memorable voyage to India, is one which, in many respects, presents features of peculiar interest. It is not our province to enter into details of these, but it may be stated that the “Cape of Good Hope”—the more auspicious designation which the King of Portugal substituted for that of Diaz—was, towards the end of the seventeenth century, colonized by Dutch and 693some French settlers, and afterwards Table Bay became a regular port of call for Dutch, English, and other ships trading to India. The Cape was taken possession of by the British in 1795, but restored to the Dutch in 1803, only to be three years after (1806) resumed by England, under whose rule “Cape Colony” has since remained. The abolition of slavery in all British dominions, enacted in 1833, was the occasion of great dissatisfaction to the descendants of the Dutch settlers, who inhabited isolated farmsteads, their possessions consisting chiefly of great herds of cattle, tended by slaves. These people, or at least the majority of them, resolved to quit the confines of British territory, and seek fresh fields and pastures new in unoccupied regions north of the Orange River, so that from 1835 to 1838 there was a continued “exodus of the emigrant farmers.” The story of the following years, with its exciting events and the vacillating policy of successive British Governments, must be perused elsewhere: suffice it to say here, that the settlements of the “emigrant farmers” had by 1854 established themselves into two separate States, nominally recognising Great Britain as the “paramount power,” but practically independent of it; for, at the last-named date, the autonomy of “The Orange River Free State” was acknowledged, and two years before that another section of the Boers, i.e. of the “emigrant farmers,” who had settled beyond the Vaal River, was absolved from British allegiance, and, restricted only by a claim of certain suzerain powers, was constituted into “The South African Republic,” of which the precise boundaries were at length determined by the “Convention of London” in 1884. This territory is usually called for shortness the Transvaal, and here in 1854 the existence of gold was first announced; but the Boer authorities at once prohibited further prospecting, fearing, and perhaps with reason, that the winning of the precious metal within their bounds might disturb their pastoral quietude. The Boer character has been the unique product of a race withdrawn for two centuries from contact with European and civilized culture, living in widely separated dwellings with scarcely other associations than cattle and enslaved blacks. The Boer is described as of a type which draws away from the enterprising man of modern times towards the primitive patriarch centred in his flocks and herds: he hates innovations, and greatly distrusts strangers; he would rather keep, in a box under his bed, any money he may possess than employ it, or his own energies, in developing the immense mineral resources of his territory, in which are included not only gold, but copper, silver, lead, iron, and abundance of coal. After some years the prohibition against the exploitation of gold in the Transvaal was withdrawn, and several localities in the Republic subsequently became small capitals of gold-mining industry. The most notable were Leydenburg and Barberton, at which latter place as many as 10,000 gold-seekers were congregated when the discovery of 1886 drew most of them away. These communities were formed almost entirely by the influx of people from beyond the Boer boundaries, mainly, of course, English-speaking people from the Cape Colony, Australia, America, etc. Their operations were hampered by the Transvaal legislation, and impeded by the absence of adequate means of communication, which was a characteristic feature of the Boers’ unprogressiveness; nevertheless, gold-mining has been pursued in some of these localities ever since, though with varying fortune. What drew nearly all the gold-seekers of the Transvaal and of adjoining regions at once to the north 694side of the Vaal River was the discovery there of real gold mines. This was at a district within the Transvaal territory, named Witwatersrandt (= White-waters-ridge), the designation which has been reduced by abbreviation or affection to “The Randt”—or, anglice, the Rand. It is singular that although the Randt district had been explored by expert prospectors between 1877 and 1891, the outcrops of the auriferous reefs entirely escaped their notice. But when the first hint of the existence of these deposits was bruited abroad, it was the Kimberley men who were foremost in surveying the spot. By the Kimberley men we mean those who so soon had by lucky chance lighted in 1870 upon the rich and apparently inexhaustible diamond mines, as related in our next section. By the time of the announcement of gold-finds on the north side of the Vaal River many of these men had become rich—very rich indeed. If they had been so disposed they might then have returned to their native countries with enviable fortunes, but it was just as the affairs of their diamond companies had been settled by consolidation on a satisfactory basis, and the spirit of discovery and adventure was still strong upon them, that they resolved personally to explore the new El Dorado. To a wild desolate region they proceeded, enduring there and on the track thither the like discomforts they had experienced in their earlier quest. But they took with them experts provided with all appliances for ascertaining the prospective value of the alleged discovery, and, when convinced of its reality, they purchased from the Boer possessors their land at the price demanded, and it was not long before they had chemists and engineers at work, having, at the cost of making their own roads, had brought to the spot the necessary machinery and appliances. The usual influx of workers, builders, speculators, etc., followed, and in a wonderfully short space of time a town sprang up where in 1886 there had been only a single poor farm. The town grew rapidly to the dimensions of a city inhabited by 150,000 people. Its name is Johannesburg. In his book on South Africa, the late Lord Randolph Churchill, describing Johannesburg in 1891, says that it has much of the appearance of an English manufacturing town, but without noise, smoke, or dirt. “The streets are crowded with a busy, bustling, active, keen, intelligent-looking throng. There are gathered together human beings from every quarter of the globe, the English possessing an immense predominance. The buildings and general architecture of the town attain an excellent standard, style having been consulted and sought after, stone and bricks the materials, corrugated iron being confined to the roofs, solidity, permanence, and progress being the general characteristics.” The Randt mines having drawn into the South African Republic great numbers of enterprising workers, who have acquired wealth and built cities, it would have been expected that they would have been permitted to acquire the ordinary rights of citizenship. The Boers’ character, however, has been manifested by their refusal of such rights, and by their exacting grievous imposts from these Uitlanders (Out-landers, or strangers), who, being for the most part of English race, are finding the injustice too hard to be borne, and greatly strained relations between the Transvaal and Great Britain have again supervened. Indeed, the situation has become so serious that it is feared actual war may result, and that is why, in almost the last year of our century, people are looking anxiously at the position of affairs in South Africa. The geological conditions of the Randt are these: the upper series of 695beds in the Karoo formation, which extends over the greater part of South Africa, consist of quartzose strata, and in the district in question these are much broken, faulted, and variously inclined. They are interstratified with beds of sandstone and with the layers of gold-bearing conglomerate, of which last there are several parallel to one another and not far separated, ranging in their several thicknesses from 6 inches to 6 feet, the thickest being known as the main reef. These reefs form an oval basin,—that is, they dip with varying angle towards a centre, and crop out at their up-turned edges. Johannesburg is situated nearly 6,000 feet above the sea-level, on an elevated ridge, along which for 30 miles east, and nearly the same westwards, the northern outcrop extends, curving towards the south, while the southern edge of the basin appears in the Orange Free State, where it has been traced for a distance of 130 miles. There a shaft, sunk to the great depth of 2,400 feet, found the main reef with undiminished richness. The outcrop of the reefs stretches east and west for 130 miles, and the distance between north