THE SOUTH AFRICAN GOLDFIELDS. The Bad and Worthless

Waikato Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 2252, 14 December 1886, Page 3

THE SOUTH AFRICAN GOLDFIELDS.

The Bad and Worthless

A CORRESPONDRNT of the Stundatd, writing from Kimberly on the 30th ult. with x'efeience to the recent discoveries of goid iv the Trauswial, says :— ln considering the question of the South African goldfields it is necessary to do some violence to the dogmatism of the geologists, and to admit that in what a learned dean has called " this topsy turvy land " minerals are not found precisely as they are in other countries. No geologist discovered the great copper mine of O'okelp in Namaqualand ; science had no part in finding diamond mines in the sandy plains of Grijjualand; and so in the Transvaal, after many failures, gold appears to be found in what were at first considered veiy unlikely places. '1 he "Sheba," or Bray's Quarry, is a solid wall of coarse blue quarts which yields eight ounces to the ton, and it is said that the abstraction of a million tons would hardly make a hole in it. This place is near the Kaap River, in the eastern part of the Transvaal, and the ridge is held by five gold-mining companies, whose shares are already fetching high prices. A fewmiles to the westward is the town of Barbcrton, which may be called the centre of the eastern gold fields, and round it some twenty companies are at work, though until their machinery can be erected their output is very limited The western gold fields lately discovered are about thirty miles south of Pretoria, and here the gold is found iv decomposed rock, and also in a sort of amygdaloid. Many companies are being formed to purchase this ground, which is said to exceed that of the eastern fields in richness, and nearly two millions hate now been embarked in the eastern and western fields together ; while an army of prospectors is spread over the country in search of new places. My object in writing (the correspondent adds) is not so much to draw attention to these Gold Fields as to point out in the clearest terms that it is not of the least use for clerks or tradesmen or labourers to go there. The voyage and the overland journey would cost £50, and there is nothing for them to do when they get there. A white labourer, or " boulderroller," cannot earn more than 25s a week, and on that he can barely live. Practical miners, with enough money to keep them for a year after their arrival, might do well ; but for the great class of unemployed the Transvaal is populess. There are no alluvial diggings, where huge nuggets can be unearthed ; and it must be remembered that outside goldminingr there is no employment for English people. The Boer landowners will, as a rule, have nothing to do with " Red Necks," and poverty means want and exposure, fever and death. Graves lie thick between Delago Bay and Barbertou. Out of one party of thirty strong men who started from the rort O n foot, eight died on the road, and the survivors arrived looking like the ghosts of their former selves. Let no one be carried away by sensational stories of exceptional cases of luck. There is undoubtedly gold in the Transvaal, but it can only be got by capital and skill ; and the rough work connected with quarrying and quartzcrushing in that clirrate can be best performed by the native labour which is cheap and abundant, and with which it is impossible for white men to compete there.

are never imitated or counterfeited. This is especially true of a family medicine, and it is positive proof that the remedy imitated is of the highest value. As soon as it had been tested and proved by the whole world that Hop Bitters was the puiest, be3t and most valuable family medicine on earth, many imitations sprung up and began to steal the notices in which the press and the people of the country had expressed the merits of H. 8., and in every way trying to induce suffering invalids to use their stuff instead, expecting to make money on the credit and wood name of H. B. Many others started nostrums put up in similar style to H. 8., with variously devised names in which the word " FTop " or " Hops " were used in a way to induce people to believe they were the same as Hop Bitters. All such pretended remedies or cures, no matter what their style or name is, and especially those with the word *4 Hop " or "Hops " in their name or in any way connected with them or their name, are imitations or counterfeits. Beware of them. Touch none of them. Use nothing but genuine American Hop Bittera, with a cluster of green Hops on the white label, and Dr. Soule's name blown in the glass. Trust nothing else. tsgTDruggists and Chemists are warned agaiust dealing in imitations or counterfeits.

Smp Brown to Fogg, who had been indulging in some of his vagaries : " Excuse me mentioning it, but now we are akme, Jet me remind yon that there are always a fool and a critic in every company." "Two is small company," replied Fogg. "But why do you call me a critic?"