Next to the valuable diamond fields, the copper mines rank in importance. The rich deposits in the Otavi district were known to South Africans some years before the German occupation. They were worked by the Bushmen, who quarried and smelted the metal, using as a flux the ash of a tree, and by the Ovambos, who adorned themselves with heavy copper ornaments. The fine outcrop at Tsumeb was discovered in 1892. The Otavi Company is a German concern with issued capital which has been fully paid up in cash, of £1,000,000 in 200,000 £5 shares. The Company took over from the South-West Africa Company 1,000 square miles of mining rights and 500 square miles of freehold rights contained therein, in order to work the group of copper mines in the Otavi area, but by virtue of its shareholding the South-West Africa Company holds an interest in the Otavi Company of about 55 per cent. This holding is the chief asset of the South-West Africa Company. The ore mined is divided into a high-grade copper product, principally copper glance, which has been exported to America, and lead ores, largely galena, and low-grade carbonate copper ores, which have been smelted at the mine. Since the completion of the Company’s railway from Swakopmund in 1908, the yearly output has averaged 36,000 tons. Other deposits are found at Grootfontein, Grossotavi, and Gochab, while recent discoveries include finds in the Bobos Mountains in the Tsumeb district, and at Okatumba, north-east of Windhoek. The Khan mine has been opened up to a considerable depth, and development work was proceeding in other promising mines when war was declared.
Tin
Large deposits of tin ores have been found, mostly in alluvial deposits, situated in the neighbourhood of outcrops of pegmatite and quartz, which occur in the hinterland of Swakopmund.
Marble
There are immense layers of good quality marble in the Karibib district. The quarrying rights are held by the Afrika-Marmor-Kolonial Gesellschaft.
Gold has been found at several places in the South-West Africa Company’s territory, and occasional nuggets have been unearthed in the Neineis tinfields, but as yet there are no discoveries of the precious ore in payable quantities. Coal has not been found.
Agriculture and Live Stock
There is a surprisingly small proportion of the land of the country under cultivation, since only 13,000 acres have been treated. Four-tenths of this total is in the well-watered Grootfontein district, while the Windhoek region has another three-tenths. Mealies, potatoes, lucerne, vegetables and melons are the principal articles grown, but a good beginning has been made with fruit and tobacco.
There are 1,330 farms, and they cover an area of over 32,000,000 acres; they vary in size from 6,000 to 50,000 acres. In 1913 they carried 205,643 cattle, 53,691 woolled sheep, 17,171 Persian sheep, 472,585 Afrikander sheep, 485,401 goats, 13,340 Angora goats, 18,163 half-bred Angoras, 15,916 horses, 13,618 mules and donkeys, 7,772 pigs, 709 camels, and 1,507 ostriches. All these figures, with the exception of those relating to the camels, show a considerable increase on the preceding year, and while they may be of no value in estimating the quantity of stock in the country at the close of the war, on account of the inevitable slaughter following on a siege, they serve to show how much advance has been made in pastoral development, in spite of the rinderpest of 1896-7, the droughts of more recent years, and diseases such as anthrax and lamziekte.
Great improvements have been made in the stock since the German occupation. The cattle owned by the natives, while hardy and useful, were of little value as sources of milk, and the meat was of an inferior quality. Goats and fat-tailed sheep were the other animals possessed by the natives. But the Germans have imported stock of the best quality and of every description.