The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1894-05-27
THE COMING Ell DORADO.
African Gold Fields yielding at the
Rate Of SAC, 100000 Year.

From the San Francisco Call,
1t will soon be twenty years since the
great gold fields of the nineteenth century
in California and Australia ceased their
phenomenal yield. 1t is only now that
there seems to be a prospect of gold
yield from a new source, which may
materially help to restore the
old relations between the precious
metals. The new source is in South
Africa, in the South African republic,
near the twenty-siXth degree of south
latitude. This is probably the oldest
worked gold field in the world Com
mentators are inclined to place the land
OF Ophir in Southern Arabia; but they
probably attach too much Importance to
tevts which are vague. Recent discovery
n ak s it almost certain that the gold
which abounded in Egypt and Palestine
in the time of Rameses, and again in the
time of Solomon came from South Africa
and was shipped north in vessels sailing
from ports on or neal Delago Bay.
II need hardly be said that the mining
appliances of 5000 years ago were rude,
and that the miners merely scratched
the surface for outcrop gold or washed
the gravel for nuggets. When the first
| prospectors went TO work in earnest in
ths Orange Frees te, the Trans wal and
Natal some ten years ago, they found
| ridges of gold-bearing rock carrying from
three to FIVE ounces to the ton. which
were practically virgin These ridges APP
pear to outcrOp all over the belt of coun-
try from the twenty siKth to'the thirtieth
parallel, bat the miners seem to have
settled down TO the conviction that the
richest of them are in the South African
republic (the old 1ransvaal) in the neigh
borhoOd of Johannesburg, and upon
range ofmountains known as the Witte
! Water Rand.
AS in Nevada, the gold is found in the
! quartz. OF this, veins dipping at various
angles cut through a conglomerate rock
| in which water-worn pebbles are i'm
! bedded. The ore is, of course, milling
| one. A line of mills with short inter-
| walls between them extend along the
main reef for distance of twenty miles.
/ How busily the stamps fall may be in
| ferred from the fact that their cleanup
/ in January was l49,S64 ounces of gold,
| which at $22 an ounce, would represent
| 50, 100000 At this rate the annual out
| put of the mines would be nearly S40, O00,-
! 0O0 but the miners figure that the gold
! bearing veins extend further than the
! present limit of operations, and that a
monthly output of 100000 ounces, worth
! 81, 100000, may be expected before long
| This would be the yield of the new FL
! Dorado up to the average yield of Cali
! fornia during the last days of the boom
The South African republic is an indie
penuenJ SIdle, recognized as Sucn by
! Great Britain by the treaty of 1884 It's
! area is about the same as that of Nevada
| Its population it is impossible to estimate,
| in consequence of the recent rush of
miners to the gold fields. Labor is
! abundant. The natives, who supply it at
| the rate of 62l6 cents day, are pro-
nounced as good workers in the mines as
white men. Thus, there is no induce
ment for working miners to go there, but
| experts, possessed of scientific knowl-
! edge and with small capital, will
| probably find better chance of
! fortune there than anywhere else in
! the world at this moment of time. Skilled
! labor will probably also find employment
! there in building the railroads which the
/ mines will require. The country is q
/ good one Independently of the mines. 1t
! will grow wheat, sugar and cotton, and
! on the hills cattle and sheep are being
! reared. 1t is abundantly watered by
! streams which feed the rivers flowing
! into the Indian ocean. The climate is hot
! but not unhealthy. The only drawback
! to the future prosperity of the country is
| the danger of wars with England, whose
! territory and protectorates encircle it all
/ around