AFRICA'S POSSIBILITIES

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 132, 25 November 1911, Page 8

AFRICA'S POSSIBILITIES

SOURCES OF GREAT WEALTH. Dr. Karl Kumm, African explorer anl missioner, speaking at Dunedin recently, said Africa had perhaps the greatest, possibilities of any of the five continents. Her wealth was greater than that of the other i'our. There was more gold in Africa, more tin, more copper, more iron, more ivory, more rubber, more diamonds. more ostrich feathers than in any of the other continents. The finest cotton in the world was grown in Egypt. Thus, of all the most valuable products of Mother Earth, Africa had a superabundance, and most of these were at present very little exploited. The surface of Africa had hardly been scratched by the white man. The greatest gold mines in the world were on the Rand There was gold all over South Africa—in Natal, in Cape Colony, in the Orange Free State, the largest deposits of it in. Rhodesia, where, near Bulawayo, a gold mine opened only two years ago paid last year l."> 0 per cent. There was gold in Ei«t Africa, there was gold on the Conso. there was gold in the Nilo Valley, in the Shari Valley, there was gold on the West Coast of Africa, there was gold between the Nile and the Red Sea, and prolnblv in many other places. The largest tin deposit on earth had h nn n f"'"id mi the Bukuru Plateau, in Niceria. in the Central Soudan. Wlrn lr>t s"ven years ago the speaker travelled across that plateau those va«t tin deports lav untouched. Three ypnre nio T.nndm heard about it, and to-d-iv fiftv tin companies, with an in'-"«t<"l onit"' of £7:000,000, were workir.7 the ti" ""Vs of Bukuru. Of the diamond* ; n Kt-ib"--ley there seemed no end. m-l (!"■>*"'■">■'.! had been found in other if "n-iMi and Central Africa. The whole li»«ki.m,p of the Continent of Afri-i »■« 'he Trnn Stone Plateau, and imbedded in t!>"=" vast mountains, of iron veiv U™<> untouched coal deposits. There 'vns «nt-i. did coal in Rhodesia, then, <"is *o«1 in Natal, in Bast Africa, in th" T/,dn-",. clave, there was coal on <V Cnnr" 1 md bitumen in the Niger F»~ners owning land in ""ii'ii J'r«" th"* seemed worth very I'tMe had domesticated ostriches, and mam- a common farmer keeping 1000 ostriches on his farm made £IO,OOO a rear. If there were much rubber in Brazil .there was moTe in Central Africa. The Lobito

iJ:i v railway being constructed from Portuguese West Airica to the sources of tnc Congo was built for no oilier purpose than to up the topper mountains, i'his railway would, wlum linislied, probably bo 2(WO miles long and cost something between £I(J,(JOI),Uwd and £l,),iK)(>,(Jl)d. The copper deposit must be very large to pay xor thu building of such a railroad.