The Transvaal, however, will in a very short time create further sensations. On the Sheba Hill veins of antimony (stibnite), worth in the commercial world £33 per ton, have been found; and at the Komati, baryta, used for bleaching and for the adulteration of white lead, has been discovered; while in the other parts of the district horn-silver, or chloride of silver, possessing 78 per cent. of the real metal, has been unearthed. This is not the same as Mackay’s celebrated mine in America, the Comstock, which is argentite, sulphite of silver, commonly termed black silver, containing as much as 85 per cent. of silver, though it is, as will be seen, immensely valuable. Then again, both the blue and green carbonates of copper, as well as native copper, can be found in abundance, and the wonderful Albert Mine, with similar ones, situated near Pretoria, of fahlerz tetrahedrite, or grey copper ore, running from 113 to 200 ozs. of silver to the ton, must not be forgotten. Again, large coal deposits have been found at Ermelo and Bronkhorst Spruit and also at Wynoor’s Poort, about 100 miles from Barberton, the last named being very little inferior to Welsh coal. Colonel Warren,[[111]] formerly on Major-General George H. Thomas’s staff in the army of Tennessee, a practical geologist, also informed me he had discovered in the Transvaal, on his road up to the Barberton gold fields, petroleum shale which, he said, was almost a positive proof of the existence of petroleum, in what may prove to be highly payable quantities. These coal deposits will be of immense value when the different water-rights in the Kaap Valley are all taken up, as the necessary wood for feeding any large number of steam engines is not to be procured without great difficulty and serious expense.[[112]]
Some idea of the madness of the speculation that has lately existed may be formed, if it be taken into consideration that the inflated selling price of the scrip of different companies floated merely, not worked, exceeded £5,000,000, while their subscribed value is under £2,000,000. This has produced what I may term an abnormal and unnatural state of things, not only at De Kaap, but in various other parts of South Africa. It is important to bear in mind (January, 1887) that there are at present only ninety-seven stamps at work (I include those on Moodie’s), yielding a profit of about £160,000 a year; and investors and speculators will do well to remember that it will be at least eighteen months before an appreciable difference in their number can be made. If we as business men compare this return with the outlay of money which is taking place, we can at once see the ruinous scale on which business is conducted. As I told you, there are 513 amalgamated blocks in the proclaimed government gold fields, paying each, on an average, £10 a month duty to government; this is £61,560 a year. Then must be added the cost of working; put this at a very low estimate, say £20 per block, there is £123,120 more. I will not reckon the expenditure of those prospectors who have not pegged out, but take next the share list of companies floated. These amount to say roughly £1,800,000, but their inflated value is at least £5,000,000. Now surely these investors expect some interest on their capital, and if a modest 5 per cent. only be allowed, although all mining speculations ought to return at least 20 per cent, (and you will agree with me, the greater part of this capital will pay no interest for two years), we have a further loss of £250,000 a year to the investing public, or a total of £434,680 at the present time.
I saw the mania which occurred some years ago on the Diamond Fields, but there, even, nothing so outrageously absurd and preposterous happened as in this gold share mania. I remember the time when central shares in the Kimberley Mine, which in the height of the mania barely reached 300 per cent, rise, and were, moreover, at the very time paying over 50 per cent. interest on their subscribed value, falling on the collapse occurring from £400 to £26 per share, and, although the property is one of the richest in the world, yet it has taken years for it to regain its status. How then about gold shares running up from £1 to £25 per share, or 2,500 per cent. advance, which are not working, have no machinery, and cannot pay a dividend, if not for years, at least for months.
The great question is, What is to be the future of these fields? I must say that, after careful investigation, I am not sanguine as to the Kaap Valley being able to carry any large population for a long time to come, and even then the population will be purely a working one, men toiling for regular wages, miners, engineers, and skilled artisans employed by companies. The average English laborer will be driven out of the fields by native labor, 1,500 natives being at present employed, and there will be no such thing as a poor man jumping into a fortune except by some extraordinary stroke of luck. I cannot too strongly impress on those who are without capital, that Barberton is no place for them, that is, unless they are prepared to be contented with wages no better, proportionately, than they can earn in any other part of the world. The skilled artisan or experienced miner may be fortunate enough to obtain a succession of highly profitable engagements, but that is very far from being a certainty. Although I would not altogether wish to discourage those who are willing “to scorn delights and live laborious days,” and who possess certain special qualifications in technical knowledge, from visiting Barberton, even although their store of money almost reaches the vanishing point, yet I would bid the vast majority of those without capital to pause and ask themselves whether it is not better to “bear those ills” they “have, than fly to others that” they “know not of.” Were this an alluvial gold field my advice would no doubt be different.
A man who, fifteen years ago, would have found the dry diamond diggings a possible Golconda, would now, I will not for a moment say starve, if he be sober, honest and industrious, but will have long to wait before he comes within measurable distance of the realization of his hopes, if he should ever do so. At Kimberley the day of the individual digger, unless he should be a man of enormous capital, is past and gone. There is a curious analogy between the two places; that which the increased expense of working, together with the amalgamation of claims, has done for the former, the working out of the known alluvial fields has done for the latter. In fact, I am reluctantly compelled to admit, that I know of no poor man’s diggings of any sort in South Africa.
That some good and extremely profitable reefs have been found, I do not for one moment wish to deny, but as I have just now said, these can be counted on the fingers of one hand. That gold is here and in large quantities is true, but it requires gold to get it, and there is such a thing as paying a guinea for a sovereign.
The place is now mainly, if not entirely, subsisting on imported capital, and that intangible entity known as hope. For capitalists, who are choosing to risk their money in testing the value of the reef properties, this is all very well. What I want to do, is to caution against disappointment those who think they are on the high road to fortune, when with hammer, pick, and tent they start off prospecting.
In concluding the subject of the gold fields I will only say that I am afraid that great disappointment must be the lot of the many—I mean the many who seek the fields comparatively penniless, trusting to receive some sudden, unearned favor from the blind goddess, rather than determining to force a smile from her by earnest, honest toil.[[113]]
During my four months’ stay on these fields I pursued my profession and had many opportunities of seeing the country, being called on professional work in almost every direction, from Eureka City and the Sheba range to Moodie’s, and from the Kantoor to the Kami Klubane Beacon in Swaziland. And I also assisted in carrying out the hospital work, which was organized on a new footing while the larger government hospital was being built.
