The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1896-10-25
KING SoL0MoN'S MINES.
THEY HAVE BEEN LOCATED SURE
ENOUGH IN SOUTH AFRICA.

AnnuaIIy-A Mass OF the Precious
Substance I'm Sight Equal to the
Total Gold Coinage of the World.
A Strip of Mineral Riches 200
Miles Long.
From the Hartford Times.
Four thousand millions of dollars in
gold right in sight! An amount equal to
the entire worlds coinage of the yellow
metal to-day. 1t seems well-nigh fabu-
lous; yet this is only a small fraction
of the wealth that is waiting to be dug
out of King Solomon's mines in South
Africa. Rider Haggard made no mistake
when he located in that region the aurif-
erous deposits from which the Queen of
Sheba and her gorgeous spouse drew such
vast quantities of treasure. DR.. George
F. Becker of the geological survey has
just returned from a visit to the golden
territory of the Rand, and he gives an
astonishing description of the great
quartzite reef which is destined within
a Short time to yield as much gold as
all the rest of the mines on earth put to-
gether
The certainty that this enormous ore
body will add four billions of dollars
worth of gold to the worlds supply with
in the next fifty years has extraordinary
interest just now. Some financial experts
believe that this flood of yellow metal
will make a change in the relative values
of gold and silver before long, causing
the latter to rise to so cents an ounce
perhaps. 1t is now 65 cents an ounce.
The reef in question is itself a geologi-
cal curiosity, being nothing more nor less
than an ancient sea beach. Perhaps sixty
millions of years have gone by since the
waves of ocean broke upon that beach.
1t was much like any sea beach to-day,
being composed of quartz sand with an
admixture of quartz pebbles. In the
course of ages the material of the beach
was turned into solid rock, the sand being
transformed into quartzite and still hold
ing the pebbles scattered through it like
almonds in a cake.
Now, the rivers had brought down to
the ancient sea much gold, together with
the disintegra ted fragments of quartz
which went to make up the beach mate
rial. The precious metal and the sand
were derived from the same rocks. Some
beaches to-day, as along the coast of
Oregon, for example contain a good deal
of gold. But the sands of this ocean
strand of a vanished geologic epoch were
full of gold, which was distributed in fine
particles among the quartz grains. So,
as might be expected. the yellow stuff is
found not in the pebbles, but in the ma
trix of quartzite which holds them The
ore is called blanket" which is German
for almond cake. The gold is so evenly
disseminated through the cake that the
ore bodies preserve a uniform richness
throughout. The average yield is $14 a
ton.
AS age succeeds ago, geologically speak
ing, great changes took place in that part
% #1,n atxfh aY,I fl4A ,,s,
was covered over by a stratum after
stratum of rocks. Only an edge of it, so
to speak, is now left exposed, cropping
out on the surface in nearly a straight
line for a distance of about thirty miles.
This is the reef, which, while only a few
feet wide, appears to slant downward
into the bowels of the earth for miles.
There are now sixty mines along the reef,
employing 10000 laborers, and the out
put last year was $46,000000 in gold. BY
1900 the annual output will have reached
500 100000. The entire gold production
of the world in 1895 was $4,000, 600
The greatest production of that metal in
the United States was in 1853, amounting
to $50, 600 600.
the deepest of the holes thus far dug in
following the reef down its incline is $500
feet. The richness is always about the
same, and to all appearances the ore body
continues indefinitely. A limit to the prac-
must be set at 5000 feet or a little less
than mile, because the gold-bearing rock
cannot be obtained and brought to the
surface from a greater depth proftably.
By means of diamond drills the deposits
have been explored far beyond the deep
est excavations, with the resulting discov-
cry that the almond cake keeps right on
of the same uniform quality. The ore is
not of extraordinary richness, but the ex-
tent of the deposits is vast beyond any
thing hitherto dreamed of by the most
imaginative miner
DR.. Decker brought back with him a
big chunk of the blanket" 1t is queer
looking stuff, and to the eye suggests at
once a likeness to nut-cake. The color of
it is dark gray, with whitish quartz peb-
bles distributed thickly through It, No
person not an expert would imagine for a
moment that it contained a particle of
gold. Indeed, the mining experts who
made the earliest examinations of the de-
posits declared that they were of no value.
One reason for their mistake was that up
to that time no gold had ever been found
under such conditions. So ancient geo.
logical horizon was supposed necessarily
to be barren of the yellow metal. Ord-
nary gold-bearing quartz reefs are cracks
in the earth's crust which have been filled
with auriferous material brought up by
volcanic action from depths, the precious
deposits of the Rand, on the other hand,
are sedimentary.
The town of Johannesburg, which has
obtained so much celebrity owing to the
recent disturbance in the Transvaal, is
situated directly upon the edge of the
great reef. 1t has been already stated
that the exposed reef is thirty miles long
The ore being as uniform in quality as
the coal in a Pennsylvania seam, it is
possible to estimate with close accuracy
the entire quantity of gold which the de-
posits may be expected to yield, the
limit Of digging being 5000 feet. Thus it
is said that there is $4,000 10000 worth of
the yellow metal actually lin sight" as
miners phrase ii. SO it would appear that
only about half a century will be required
for the complete exhaustion of these
mines.
There is something very important to
be added. however "A few years ago one
Of DIR. Decker's scientific assistants took
a notion to try his fortune in the Rand
district That he knows his business may
be inferred from the fact that he is
now worth 100000. He told Dr. Decker
a few weeks ago that IL was a great mis-
take to suppose that the reef was only
thirty miiac in length. He gaVa Il