The daily chieftain. [volume] (Vinita, Ind. Ter. [Okla.]) 1898-1902, 1900-07-06
IN SOUTH AFRICA.
Discovery OF Gold in the Trnnsvsal
and the Difficulties OF
Mining.


Klyda II. steege, writing of Sout
Africa In st. Nicholas, of the disco
! cry OF gold in the Transvaal, and tn
! growth of johannesburg, says:
"A German named Mauch was tn
first to discover evidences of gold 4
the Transyaal, but, failing TO interes
his fellow-countrymen in mining il
so difficult and distant country
nothing came of his discovery. No
until an Englishman, Struben by name
found the gold at the Transyaal again
was any special interest taken in the
matter. He spread the news, and in
4 q years time from the first opening
OF the country, 10000 people had ar
! rived on the spot, eager to make for
tunes. They came from every part
OF the world and included every class
OF persons-miners from California
and other western states, younger
sons of well-known English families,
adventurers, and spectators, and peo-
pie who had given up respectable,
steady occupations and businesses to
join in the mad rush for gold. This
crowd of excited, eager men (some
women and children were among
them, too) pitched tents, or nailed to-
gether a few boards for protection,
or built frail, lealy shanties with
roofs of iron bent into wavy ridges
-corrugated-and began their new
life.
They were over a thousand miles
from the sea coast, and some of them.
who could not find any other method
OF travelling or could not afford an
other had come, after leaving the
railroad, 500 miles on foot. I
There they were, when they reached
the gold fielus, in a country without
trees or vegetation other than grass,
on the high, bare veldt Qike our, prai-
rie), the great South African plateau,
which is, on the Transvaal, about
6,00o feet above sea level, and to which,
all material for building all convent
ences and necessities for living, and
much of their food had to be brought
in OK carts and carried sometimes
from even the distant coast.
This was in 1886, and now, where
the first little wooden sheds and tents
were put UP, stands johannesburg, a
city Of 100000 inhabitants fine town
with good buildings, electric lights
and street railways. Stretching away
from it toward the east and west runs
the gold region, some 40 or so miles
in length. You will hear this reef,
which was in prehistoric times the
edge OF great ocean basin, called the
Rand. This term is an abbreviationl
of Witwatersrand, which means white
water ridge, and the ridge, or reef,
forms the watershed between the At
antic and Indian oceans There are
great many of these Rand mines,
and the amount of gold taken from ]
them has long exceeded the supply |
from any other part of the world. Cal
fornia and Australia are left quite ,
behind in their production. You
would not care for too many figures, I
but when you realize that the Trans
saal gold has frequently reached a
value of about $5,0OO.OOO month, 1t
> quite an overwhelming thought /,
how rich the mines are. Enormous
fortunes have been made from them |
md men who arrived in the Transvaall I
without cent have grown rich, while. I
IN the other hand, numbers of peo. 4
Die have ventured everything and lost .
III they had. johannesburg is city !
where everybody speculates, and al T.
yreat amount Of money is wasted :
very day. People make money quick. =
y, and spend II as fast, and one paws
or almost everything great dead a
more than It is worth. .