Daily inter mountain. [volume] (Butte, Mont.) 1881-1901, 1900-09-28
GOLD FIELDS Of |
GREAT WEALTH
(By S. C. Norris. Examining Comrais-
Sioner in RhOdeSia.)

In 1886 it would have fairly staggered
any exper in the production of gold to
have been told that in the Witwaters-
rand, where Ferreira's Camp then was
and johannesburg now Is, there await
ed the miner an accumulation OF he
precious metal which would be four times
the. amount of all that has been obtained
from the Australian gold fields.
It is only within the last five years.
though, that this astounding fact has
been proved. The proof of it has been
a long and expensive process which re-
ceived its browning touch only when one
of the costly bore-holes reached a depth
of 5000 feet.
The gold is so finely scattered through
out the ore that in order to obtain a cubic
inch of the precious metal no less than
half a million Of cubic inches of solid
rock have to be crushed and pounded up
and ground into fine sand. The ma
chinery. for such work Is of course very
powerful, though it is only one portion
of the various costly appliances which
Are in operation at Witwatersrand. In
fact. there are to be seen along those
twenty-nine miles of reef some the finest
engineering in the world; and some of the
ablest management tina ever controlled
a gigatic industry. 1t is all at high
pressure. and no pains are spared to CAR
~ Out Ill LIE lltIlCdNC oPSl VI -
ing. crushing and ore-reduction with the
utmost efficiency. Y /
Up to the time Of the war the value
of the gold which had been produced was
upward of $751; 900. 90. 900 in value
But this grand total of gold production
will be wrought by far fewer workers
thar those hordes of gold igger from
whom Messrs, Bret Harte and Boldfe-
wood have drawn their galleries OF char
ootorc COch a thing as a moor mans
diggings is quite unknown in the coxn-
try around johannesburg. The aurifRr-'
Gus deposits of California and Australia
were easily washable in their earlier
stages. by .unskilled labor. By sundFy
primitive methods of sluicing at trdfifng
cost, gold was directly OBJ ainable from
gravels and soils. Nuggets. too. were
plentiful. Thus there were fortunes
awaiting the more lucky in thousands Of
instances.
In each of the larger batteries of the
Wiuwatersrand, no less than nine hun
bred tons of rock are pounded up daily.
Night and day. necessarily. there are 20
stamps pounding away In this one bat
terry. AS each stamp weighs half a ton.
the weight of the 200 is exactly 100 tons:
and as they are all laundering away at
the same time, the noise they make Is
dealeening and the solid earth seems to
shake under YOU feet.
The sound Of this machinery can be
heard at a distance of seven or eight
miles. The battery nouse is an enormous
corrugated iron structure, with massive
timber framing. The ~wagonloads Of ore
are tipped from tramways against great
screens. and the larger rocks are put
through the jaws OF gigantic stone-crush-
ers. In these strong iron chambers there
are anvils. or dies. on which lie great
half-ton stamps pound away necessarily,
reducing the rock to powder.
Each stamp will crush four and a half
tons in the twenty-four hours. There
is a carefully regulated flow of water car
rying away the fine sand to which the
rock has been reduced and ~spreading.it
over wide surfaces of quicksilver ANAL
gam to which most Of the gold adheres.
At the end of nearly four weeks of con
tinuous work the stamps are stopped.
The amalgam is then scraped off the
plates and put in retorts for the separa-
ton of the quicksilver from the gold.
The. INK which has been washed over
the plates is made to yield a further sup
ply of gold by cyanide treatment and by
other processes CT gold extraction.
AS it is ait. the end of each calendar
month that the gold is separated and col
lected, the custom is universal of declar-
ing the output of gold month by month,
and this system is made compulsory by
regulations.