The Coolidge examiner., 1936-10-02

The WitwaterSrand mines pre-
sent unique sight. Above ground
is confusing mass of vatS, troll
leys, bins, trestles supporting pipes
and machinery, dumps, headgears
topped by cables and whirling
wheels, and various structures of
wood and iron. Workmen, who are
underground commuters, des-
cend by skip" QifD into the in
terror at the speed of an express
elevator for we'll over a mile into the
depths of the earth.
Johannesburgers dig holes as
grandiosely a S Americans rear
skyscrapers more grandiosely.
The shafts of the deepest mine on
the Rand at present descend over
5000 feet, Approximately a mile and
a half. Plans are under way for
mining to the depth of 10000 feet,
nearly two miles.
Atrip below the surface reveals to
you a subterranean electrical town,
with avenues and cross streets,
where thousands of men are drilling
and loading the gold-bearing con-
glomerate. 1t gives you the impress
sion of cleanliness, neatness, and
thanks to the giant elevators - of
a not-too-uncomfortable warmth.
You stay long enough to watch a
surface hoist start off with a load
weighing over nine tons, which it will
lift up that mile or more of shaft
to the crushing and reduction plant
in about two minutes. Then you too
may ascend once more to what,
measuring shafts by skyscrapers,
the elevator operator might con-
ceivably announce as Two hun
dredth floor, last stop!"
What you have glimpsed is but
a tiny corner cf what is, in effect,
a vast underground city, whose axis
measures 70 miles, whose workers
number over 100000 and whose
shafts, avenues, and streets exceed
1000 miles, or approximately the
length of the African Continent.
Sports of the Natives
How to handle that grand total of
212,000 men, 80 per cent of them
Bantu, who, either above ground or
under it, work on the Rand?
creation-whether golf, tennis,
bowls, swimming, or native dances
is universal, with inter-mine sports
as a corollary. AS to health and
safety, each man regularly under
goes medical examination, first aid
is taught to many thousands, while
that CHEEKY organ, The Reef, advises
you on everything, from keeping fit
to giving accidcnt-prevention tips
to American visitors in what it
thought to be AmericaneSe.
AS to native recreation, the
boys" weekly war dance rivals a
circus, rodeo, and a football
match combined. Here is a native
compound disgorging its thousands
of black Shangaans who are well
coming other thousands of black
M 'Chopis, the former tribes invited
guests. A pell-mell pageant of saw
age magnificence! All are superb in
leopard skins, beads, head plumeS,
oxtail knee adornments.
Iron and Diamonds, Too
How explain the Reef? How was
this treasure house built? In order
to comprehend, we must imagine
successive geologic cataclysms :
molten rock being elected from the
interior of the earth; long-vanished
seas rushing in to lay sediments
thereon; then the seas retirement,
and in its place some great, pre-
historic river sweeping through au-
riferous regions to deposit its gran
ular gold among that three-mile
depth of marine sediment
But the Transvaal, like South AT
rica in general, is as varied in re-
spect to treasure houses as was an
cient Delphi, with its treasures"
In the Pretoria region, and also near
Rustenburg and in the 'Bushveld
Complex, there are apparently I'M
limited iron resources, while the
last-named region promises to yield
one of the greatest platinum de-
posits in the world.
And then there are the ever-crOp-
ping-up diamonds. one might al
most say, those irrepressible South
Africa diamonds. Really, one never
knows where they will turn up next.
And, just to illustrate how South
African diamonds keep cropping up,
here is a glimpse of the Lichtenburg
alluvial diggings west of Johan-
nesburg. Not ten years ago Lichten-
burg was tiny, WilloWShaded
Sleepy Hollow of dorp-sleepy,
perhaps dreaming, but certainly not
of diamonds. But suddenly one day
appeared some $4,000 men, who
lined up for the official pistol shot,
then rushed pell-meu to peg their
claims on what had proved to be a
diamond field fifteen miles long by