MILES OE COAL.

Hokitika Guardian, 6 January 1920, Page 4

MILES OE COAL.

POSSIBILITIES OF AFRICA. JOHANNESBURG, December 10. If the gold industry of the Transvaal did not overshadow it to such an extent the province’s wealth of coal would probably rank far higher in popular estimation. It possesses 5000 square miles of coal-bearing area, as compared with about 3250 in the other three provinces together, and tonnage estimated to be available is 36,000,000. The output in 1917 was 6,641,200 tons, or, fl-oughly, three-fiffths of that of the entire Union. It is found in abundance in close proximity of the Rand — in fact, some-of the reef on the East Rand is actually overlaid by coal measures—but the principal coalfields lie at Middelburg, and Witbank, about 100 miles frolic Johannesburg. Immense deposits of iron ore exist in the province, and will eventually prove the basis of a great smelting industry, a start in this 'direction having recently been made; but the value of tlie ore is not high enough for export purposes, and more and better coke is needed for local treatment. Copper (is 'produced to £550,000 per annum, tin to £370,000, and silver to £173,000. There is a 50 'nlies’ belt of asbestos in the LydenIrurg district, which promises to prove the richest in the world, and a belt of similar extent of mica occurs in tlie iLeysdorp division the product being manufactured into sheets, etc., at Johannesburg. Graphite, talc, corundrum, zinc, arid various other base metals and minerals, exist, and, in fact, the Trknsvaal may fairly be described as Iqne of the most highly-mineralised countries in the world.