The daily morning journal and courier., 1896-01-13

farms that the city of Johannesburg was destined to rise as if under a ma gician's wand, from a collection of huts, in eight years, to a city covering an area three miles by one and half, with suburbs stretching many miles beyond with handsome streets and lux urious houses, in the very heart of the desert.
 It was one Sunday evening in 1886 that the great ''fnd'' was made which laid the base of the prosperity of the Jollannesburg-to-be A farm servant
 of the brothers Struben went over to visit a friend at a neighboring farm, and as he trekked home in the evening, knocked off bit of rock, the appear anee of which led him to take 1t home to
 his employer, It corresponded with
 what Struben had himself found in an
 other part, and following up both leads revealed what became famous as the
 Main Reef which was traced for miles east and west.
 A lot of '.conglomerate" was sent on to Kimberly to be analysed, and a
 thoughtful observer of the analysis tsttltIE NfAlIC " lllC lileit
 must be more good stuff where that
 came from. So he mounted his horse
 and rode over to Barberton, where he
 caught coach" which dropped him
 on the Rand, as 1t is now called. There he quietly acquired the Langlaagte farm for few thousands, which the people on the spot thought was sheer madness on his part, But his name
 was J. B. Robinson and he is now
 known in the 'KafTif. Circus and else where as one of the "gold kings" of Africa. He gradually purchased other farms, and in a year or two floated the well known Langlaagte Company, with a capital of f450,00o to acquire what had
 cost him only about f20,000 In five
 years this company turned out gold to the value Of a million, and paid tiivi- dends to the araouRtsof f3S0 900. The
 Robinson Company, formed little later to acquire and work some other lots, in five years produced gold to the value
 of one and half million, and paid to it's shareholders some f570000 in divi- deflds. With these discoveries and stlc-
 cessful enterprises the name and fame of the 'Rand" was established, and for years the district became the happy hunting ground of the fnanciers and company promoters. The Rand, or Witwatersrandt, is the topmost plateau of the High Veldt of the Transvaal, at the water shed of the Limpopo and the Vaal and on the summit of the plateau
 is the gold city of Johannesburg, some
 5,700 feet above the sea.
 In the later eighties and earlier nineties the principal feature in Johan- nesburg was the Stock Exchange, and the main occupation Of the inha abitants was the buying and selling of shares in mining companies. many of them bogus, at fabulous prices. The inevit- able reaction came, until once resplend. ent 'brokers" could hardly raise the
 price of drink; though, to be sure
 drinks and everything else cost a small fortune. To-day the city is the center of great mining industry, and the
 roar of the stamps is heard all round it, night and day From a haunt of
 grown into comparatively sedate town of industry, commerce and finance and the gold fever which maddened it's pepulace has been transferred (not wholly), perhaps to London and Paris
 In fact, all Europe has been inoculated
 with the disease which at one time made Johannesburg a marvel and a, re-
 proach.
 That disease is a craving for spec