The Rand gold fields, which in 1920 produced half of the world's gold, are embodied in a reef about fifty miles long and twenty miles wide. All the mines immediately in and about Johannesburg are practically exhausted. The large development today is in the eastern section. People do everything but eat gold in Johannesburg. Cooks, maids, waiters, bootblacks—indeed the whole population—are interested, or at some time have had an interest in a gold mine. Some historic shoestrings have become golden cables. J. B. Robinson, for example, one of the well-known magnates, and his associates converted an original interest of £12,000 into £18,000,000. This Rand history sounds like an Aladdin fairy tale.
What concerns us principally, however, is the American end of the whole show. Hardly were the first Rand mines uncovered than they felt the influence of the American technical touch. Among the first of our engineers to go out were three unusual men, Hennen Jennings, H. C. Perkins and Captain Thomas Mein. Together with Hamilton Smith, another noted American engineer who joined them later, they had all worked in the famous El Callao gold mine in Venezuela. Subsequently came John Hays Hammond, Charles Butters, Victor M. Clement, J. S. Curtis, T. H. Leggett, Pope Yeatman, Fred Hellman, George Webber, H. H. Webb, and Louis Seymour. These men were the big fellows. They marshalled hundreds of subordinate engineers, mechanics, electricians, mine managers and others until there were more than a thousand in the field.
This was the group contemporaneous and identified with the Jameson Raid. After the Boer War came what might be called the second generation of American engineers, which included Sidney Jennings, a brother of Hennen, W. L. Honnold, Samuel Thomson, Ruel C. Warriner, W. W. Mein, the son of Capt. Thomas Mein, and H. C. Behr.
Why this American invasion? The reason was simple. The American mining engineer of the eighties and the nineties stood in a class by himself. Through the gold development of California we were the only people who had produced gold mining engineers of large and varied practical experience. When Rhodes and Barnato (they were both among the early nine mine-owners in the Rand) cast about for capable men they naturally picked out Americans. Hammond, for example, was brought to South America in 1893 by Barnato and after six months with him went over to Rhodes, with whom he was associated both in the Rand and Rhodesia until 1900.
Not only did Americans create the whole technical machine but one of them—Hennen Jennings—really saved the field. The first mines were "outcrop," that is, the ore literally cropped out at the surface. This outcrop is oxidized, and being free, is easily amalgamated with mercury. Deeper down in the earth comes the unoxidized zone which continues indefinitely. The iron pyrites found here are not oxidized. They hold the gold so tenaciously that they are not amalgamable. They must therefore be abstracted by some other process than with mercury. At the time that the outcrop in the Rand become exhausted, what is today known as the "cyanide process" had never been used in that part of the world. The mine-owners became discouraged and a slump followed. Jennings had heard of the cyanide operation, insisted upon its introduction, and it not only retrieved the situation but has become an accepted adjunct of gold mining the world over. In the same way Hammond inaugurated deep-level mining when many of the owners thought the field was exhausted because the outcrop indications had disappeared.
These Americans in the Rand made the mines and they also made history as their part in the Jameson Raid showed. Perhaps a word about the Reform movement which ended in the Raid is permissible here. It grew out of the oppression of the Uitlander—the alien—by the Transvaal Government animated by Kruger, the President. Although these outsiders, principally English and Americans, outnumbered the Boers three to one, they were deprived of the rights of citizenship. The Reformers organized an armed campaign to capture Kruger and hold him as a hostage until they could obtain their rights. The guns and ammunition were smuggled in from Kimberley as "hardware" under the supervision of Gardner Williams. It was easy to bring the munitions as far as Kimberley. The Boers set up such a careful watch on the Transvaal border, however, that every subterfuge had to be employed to get them across.
Dr. Jameson, who at that time was Administrator of Southern Rhodesia, had a force of Rhodesian police on the Transvaal border ready to come to the assistance of the Committee if necessary. The understanding was that Jameson should not invade the Transvaal until he was needed. His impetuosity spoiled the scheme. Instead of waiting until the Committee was properly armed and had seized Kruger, he suddenly crossed the border with his forces. The Raid was a fizzle and the commander and all his men were captured by the Boers. This abortive attempt was the real prelude to the Boer War, which came four years later.
Most Americans who have read about this episode believe that John Hays Hammond was the only countryman of theirs in it. This was because he had a leading and spectacular part and was one of the four ringleaders sentenced to death. He afterwards escaped by the payment of a fine of $125,000. As a matter of fact, four other prominent American mining engineers were up to their necks in the reform movement and got long terms in prison. They were Capt. Thomas Mein, J. S. Curtis, Victor M. Clement and Charles Butters. They obtained their freedom by the payment of fines of $10,000 each. This whole enterprise netted Kruger something like $2,000,000 in cash.
The Jameson Raid did more than enrich old Kruger's coffers and bring the American engineers in the Rand to the fore. Indirectly it blocked a German scheme that might have played havoc in Africa the moment the inevitable Great War broke. If the Boer War had not developed in 1899 it is altogether likely that, judging from her whole campaign of world-wide interference, Germany would have arranged so that it should break out in 1914. In this unhappy event she could have struck a death blow at England in South Africa because in the years between the Boer War and 1914 she created close-knit colonial organizations in South-West and East Africa; built strategic railways; armed and drilled thousands of natives, and could have invaded the Cape Colony and the Transvaal.
In connection with the Jameson Raid is a story not without interest. Jameson and Rudyard Kipling happened to be together when the news of Roosevelt's coup in Panama was published. The author read it first and handed the paper to his friend with the question: "What do you think of it?"