The Ely miner. [volume] (Ely, Minn.) 1895-1986, 1907-08-09

johannesburg, South Africa.-Botha,
the famous Boer guerilla general, a
British premier and feted in London;
the Transvaal, after three years of
warfare and five of military rule, once
more a self-governing colony under
Boer control-how strangely events
reverse themselves! And yet Jo-
hannesburg, which created the Trans
vaal and is nine-tenths of it, goes on
serenely, pouring forth gold in con-
tinuous stream, unmindful of political
change, and will continue, doubtless,
to do SO, till the last paying particle
of the auriferous metal has been ex-
tracted. Then the mines will close
down forever, the houses tumble to
decay, and the myriads of migrating
springbok will once more wander over
the site of the great mining city.
Dumped down in the middle of a
vast, rolling sea of barren uplands,
crowned with strong granite hills,
Joined to the southern coasts, over
thousand miles away, by only two
slender railway lines, Johannesburg
is emphatically dependent for it's ex-
istence on the gold output. Just one
and-twenty years ago a party of pros
pectors made discovery of gold
upon the farm of an ignorant Boer
named Johann, who resided far from
civilization in a desolate region where
it had been stated officially that gold
could not possibly be found. They
offered him a price which seemed
enormous for the sale of this property.
The old man pocketed the money,
packed his wife, children and house
hold utensils inside his ponderous
wagon, inspanned his oxen and
trekked away northward into the will
derness. To-day his farm is valued in
billions; and now, where once the
weld was blackened with antelope
herds, stalked by the lion and leopard
and few adventurous frontiersmen,
there stands city of 10000 souls,
white, black, yellow and brown, known
as Johannesburg.
The City To-Day.
1t is a long, irregular, strung-out
succession of mining villages, amalga-
mating into fine town toward the
center of their length, and stretching
away for about 80 miles along the
course of the famous reef-a series
of tall chimneys, miners huts, groups
of stores, negro and Chinese COM
pounds, huddled beneath the shadow
of the great wheels which crown the
headgear at the entrance to the shafts.
From miles away, when everything is
hidden under the noon haze, or floats
a dancing mirage, between earth and
sky, may be seen the immense heaps
of "tailings," which is the name given
to that refuse that remains after the
gold has been extracted by cyanide of
mercury from the pulverized ore, and
shines, whittier than snow, in immense
mounds along the whole course of the
outcrop. So vast are these heaps
that when, during the exciting days
of revolution and the Jameson raid,
Boer officials suspected that maxim
guns and rifles were hidden therein,
they were searched Systematically for
days without their contents being dis
covered
There is probably no city in the
world which has seen so many event
full days or held such an assorted pop
ulation. The fame which Johannes
burg attained on the discovery there
Of the richest gold fields in the world,
sustained by her constant prominence
in the eternal Anglo-Dutch feud in
South Africa, attracted thither adven-
turers and fortune-hunters from all
corners of the earth. Here we may
see the Englishman, recently arrived
and specifically scornful Of colonials:
the miner from Wales, speaking no
tongue but Welsh, drawn thither by
high wages; the Yankee, supreme in
enterprise and slowly outing all his
competitors from business; the French
investor, the German brewer and. of |
course the Scotch bank clerk, Indian |
coolies, Afghans with horses, Persians
in round, embroidered caps; Syrians
peddling and hawking, Greeks and |
Italians pushing great barrows laden |
with fruits and luscious grapes from /
the Cape orchards; Malay women with
regular, oval features, carrying upon