AMAZINGLY RICH GOLD STRIKE

Chronicle (Levin), 18 April 1946, Page 5

AMAZINGLY RICH GOLD STRIKE

Press Assn.

SOMB AFRICA AFIRE WITH GOLD fEVER Millions Sterling Being Paid For Options

By Telegraph

-Copyright

Received Thursday, 12.45 p.m. $ LONDON, April 17. A small cylinder of rock I'rom an At'rican gold mine yesterday put £12, 000,000 iiito the pockets of the shareholders in the mattef oi hours, says the Daily Mail. This discovery is at Odenalls and Rust and points to the existence oi' oue of the richest g-oldfields m the world. There are indicatiuns oi*, aii Tiiibroken chain oi' goldbearing reefs tnlly 25 miles long, lying- in the vicinity of the jMwnships oi Odenalls and Rust. The piece of rock which caused the greatest "gold rush" oii the Stock Uxchange for years, v.'tis only 15 inches by oue and a half and eame from a borehole drilh'd by two companies — Western Hokliwgs and Blinkpoort Gold Syndieate — on a conimon boundary of the property at a spot iive miles southeast of Odenalls and Rust. The borehoie intersected a basal reef at 3922 I'eet, the depth at which the maui yield was encountered. Jt is regarded as a reasonable distanee l'rom the surface l'or goldinining o])erations. Other good strikes wef-e tiiade in recent vears of gold bearing reefs five miles north and the same distanee south of thedatest discovery, The Daily Mail adds thal Stock TCxchange dealei-s found it difficult to believe the firsl eables from .Johannesburg but leaping share prices at the South Afr'ean gold mining- eentre soon dispelled anv doubts. Western Iloldings' live shilling shares which were down to 2s 3d in 1938, soared by 17s 6d in a little more than half an hour. The biggest rise of the day was in the. Blinkpoort five shilling shares which are not qnoted ofticially in London, but leapt in Johannesburg from 38s to 80s and closed at 59s 6d.. Shares in other gold mining companies and leading finance houses participat- i ing in developments in the Orange Free State, also recorded s])eetacular rises.

South Africa is afire with the gold fever following the enormously rich strike. Millions sterling for! options on once almost valueless land are pouring into the pockets of i poverty-stricken Orange Free State : farmers, says the Associated Press i of Great Britain 's Johannesburg correspondent. Small plots along the straggling street of the village once worth £5 cannot be bought now for £1200. Farmers who previously had difficulty in scraping a living from poor soil are now suddenly „ rushed into a life of luxury. For years the possibilities of the: district have been speculated on. It 1 is between two rich gold-bearing districts, but the investigations have been made without result.

[ The new strike is the first proof That gold not only exists, but can !be found in undreamed of quaritities, a yield of sixty-two ounces per ton of ore in the hew field, cofnpared with the averUge of a quartef of an ounce per ton. Prices or Orange Free State issues of gold shares went "through une roof" when the .London Stock Exchange opened to-day. The rich gold strike caught the imaginatiori of speculators, who inundated brdkers and ordered them to buy shareS : at anything like last night's prices, ; but this was impossible. The prices had soared at ari. increasing speed after the lead from Johannesburg, 1 where the market opens an hour before London. .. . I