SIGN LANGUAGE

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 1, Issue 203, 20 April 1932, Page 7

SIGN LANGUAGE

rand mill workers CEASELESS THUNDER OF GREAT STAMPING PLANTS. ROARING TORMENT. Half a mile from the stamp battery of a Witwatersrand goldmine the sound of it might well be mistaken for the roar of the troubled breakers on a rocky foreshore. That is, if the altitude, the sand dumps, the feel of the Rand — ^the taste of it — eould be put out of mind and the wholeriess of the sound overlooked, for, unlike the breakers' song, there^ is never any temporary lull. Walk toward the mill and the similarity becomes less apparent. The sound is at once bigger and harder. It begins not only to drown all other sounds, but also to cut off the senses from their proper . f unctions and to press them into service entirely upon ^itself. The whole being is conscious 'of sound and sound and sound. Enter the building, and the noise becomes a solid wall of thunder. But it is a harder thunder. There is no brealc in its anywhere, and there is no vestige of rhythm in the whole range of it. It is a crash, but a continuous one. There is the impression that all the crockery of the world is being broken at once, and then, without pause, broken again. Four hundred stamps, each weighing over a ton, and each being raised and dropped 90 times a minute on to cast steel dies. This is the noise, and the shuddering vibration which also becomes a part of the noise passes through the human frame with the jarring effect of continuous collision — for that is what it is. "Solid" Sound. The dies, on which the "banket" is crushed by the rapidly-pounding stamps, are themselves housed in great steel boxes founded on massive concrete blocks through which much of the vibration is safely passed to earth. But up above, some 20 feet or more above the boxes, lifting cams smaclc and smash against the stamps' tappets — 90 smacks a minute for each of 400 stamps. Thirty-six thousand smacks a minute from the cams; the same number from the stamp shoes on the quartz upon the dies. In this solid body of sound men li-ve and work. More than that, they learn — in time — to pick out what are really only the tiniest little cracks in the mass of it — a loose shoe, a broken stem, a slipping belt. Perhaps it is that they feel a microscopic opening in its uniformity rather than hear any change. They feel their way to the brealc — but they do it swiftly and unerringly, for a delay or a mistake in that roaring torment of rapid, heavy movement might mean a seriouS breakdown. Besides, there are bonuses for the output of pulped- quartz — and other things for an excess of lost time. So they move quickly, hang the damaged stamps — a ticklish business this, as it means perilous proximity to the flying tappets — and sWing heavy sledges, silently. At least, it seems so. They might be swinging the downiest cushions for all the sound they make, relatively. Sign Language. They do their work without talking, though they have a language, these mill-men. A language of signs. Perhaps it is the most highly-developed sign language there is. Certainly, it is the most comprehensive. Its vocabulary covers all there is to be said about the work, and the broad outlines of things as far removed from that as a motor accident, a fight, or a race meeting. Meanings of words, phrases — whole sentences sometimes — flow from a few quick movements of hands, head, or feet and a rapid change or two of expression. It is a natural outgrowth in a World where men are struck suddenly dumb for eight hours every day. For a Rand stamp battery is the very mother cf thunder, and none can raise his voice against her or listen to aught else while she speaks. Day and night she speaks. Three shifts of men attend her to fill the 24 hours, and once a month only is there a lull in their labour and hers. Once a months the stamps are hung for major repairs, and there is quiet. On that day — as on Good Friday and Christmas Day, the only statutory holidays — a stamp mill is the quietest place on earth.