Show TRAN 41 I 1 N A T V 4 native digging south african gold prepared by national geographic society washington D C service FTER J L i 29 years search the AFTER A transvaal rans vaal south africa rica has given up what Is believed to be i the other half of the famous cullinan diamond the largest diamond ever found the other half was picked up in two parts one a carat diamond of good quality and the other a carat stone which is flawless j the transvaal rightly has been called the treasure house province of south africa it has earned the right as well to be called a famous treasure region of the world for out of its hills and plains have come billions of dollars worth of gold and diamonds not to mention other valuable minerals the transvaal Is young in history its oldest town now an important south african educational center will not round out its first century until 1939 onedas but to glance at johannesburg the provinces capital to get the spirit of the transvaal strangely impressive as one approaches the city are miles of mine dumps surrounding the the mountainous backbone of the province across the vast plain they stretch like avenues of mammoth monuments as if promising a climax of prehistoric grandeurs grandeury gran deurs yes grandeurs grandeury gran deurs but of what land for sometimes they align themselves in a great wall recalling 7 chinas cainas Ch inas or again you catch in their vista a resemblance to E egypta pyramids or to mesopotamian alg 9 brats or yet again their sloping sand hued mas lifs su suggest est military fortifications on a scale the world has never known the colossal picture tempts ones fancy if the rands gold ml mines nes crumbled to nothingness ae leaving only the dumps some writer a millennium hence might conceivably describe them as those mighty works reared perhaps as defenses or patriotic monuments by the ancients of the twentieth century if you ask a local statistician to give you some approximate idea of the dumps tonnage he be may ask in turn would you prefer it in ocean greyhounds grey hounds or in egyptian pyramids pyramid Q twenty thousand Mauret anias would about equal and leviathans Levi athans would somewhat exceed the dumps tonnage or shifting the comparison that tonnage would be approximated by aligning across the rand replicas of the great pyramid stumbled on ten billions stubbing ones toe against a ten billion dollar gold reef is an experience reserved to the few it was in that george walker out for a stroll accidentally kicked into a gold hearing bearing outcrop of what proved pro ed to be the main reef of the here shaped ft like e a vast bowl imbed ded face upward was a 70 mile stretch of gold impregnated rock that it if you believe in kismet had awal awaited tei george walkers intrusive toe ever since early geologic times and now upon that treeless uninhabited no mans land there appeared a tawdry mining village of tents and coerced wagons telegraph wires hummed ant and the village became a raw tin shack town of people the pre prevailing crude process lost half the gold worked yet who cared since the reef seemed inetha inexhaustible list ble supplies were teamed from miles way away yet atho A minded fancy prices and as to the water shortage all right lets bring in champagne thus began the baby babyhood hood of johannesburg which today though a mere S youth auth in years is a giant in achievement the largest african town south of cairo and chief commercial plexus of the unions hinterland coburg Jo burg has a municipal area of nearly 82 square miles and some people in the deep mines the mines whether fit at work or play present a unique sight here one Is in work hours descending sc by skip lift into the interior of the earth at the speed of an express elevator dig holes as grandl as americans rear skyscrapers more grandiosely in fact for your all alighting holn point proves to be one and one third miles below the earths surface your our impression of this subterranean electric lit town with its avenues and cross streets where thousands of men are drilling or loading the auriferous conglomerate Is one of cleanliness neatness and thanks to the giant ventilators rs of a not too uncomfortable warmth you stay long enough to watch a surface hoist start off with its qa ton load which it will lift up that mile or more of shaft to the crushing and reduction plant in about two minutes then you repin regain the skip and ascend once more to what what measuring holes by skyscrapers the cable operator mi might lit conceivably announce as two tivo hundredth floor last stop that which you have glimpsed Is but a tiny corner of what is in effect a vast subterranean city w whose ose axis measures 70 miles whose workers w rk number and whose shafts sh ats avenues and streets total miles m les or approximately the length of the african continent and the business of this super mole city is to disgorge over one halt half of the worlds annual gold production how elow to handle that grad total of men 90 per cent of them bantu B a antu who either above ground aund or under it work on the rand recreation whether golf tennis bowls swimming or native dances Is universal with inter mine sports as a corollary As to health and safety each man regularly undergoes medical examination first aid is taught to many thousands while that cheery or organ vil the reef advises you on everything from keeping fit to giving ac aident prevention tips to american visitors in what is thou thought ht to be lc anese as thus say folks were right here at a real eal slap up gold mine lady from ivA memphis emphis please dont eject your gum down the shaft that pellet will accomplish comp com a velocity of miles per second and give some one a headache As to recreation the boys weekly war dance rivals a circus a rodeo and a football match combined here flere Is a native compound disgorging dis gorging its thousands of black who are welcoming other thousands of black the former tribes invited guests but the tra transvaal like south africa in general is as varied in respect to treasure houses as was ancient delphi with its treasuries in tho the pretoria region and also near rustenburg and in the complex there are apparently unlimited iron resources while the last named region promises to yield one of the greatest platinum deposits in the world the annual production values in gold silver platinum and the base metals total about diamonds may be anywhere and then there are the ever crop ping din up diamonds one might almost say those irrepressible south african diamonds really one never imons where they will turn up next nest here flere is the famous premier nier mine an even larger crater than its defunct forerunner at kimberley in about a quarter of a century the premier nas produced some gyc tons of diamonds the famous cullinan its longest dimension was inches its shortest was 2 inches and it ft was cut into nine large stones and scores of smaller ones blasting hour at the premier as beheld from the craters edge Is a striking sight at the given moment a red hag flag flutters a bell clangs and antlake multitudes of wor workmen limen are seen scurrying lor shelter there ensues a veritable barrage ot of some 2000 dynamite charges hurling successive masses 0 t blue earth in air then the explosions die dowl dow the workers reappear to load the debris on trucks that ascend to the crushing plant and the days big diamond offensive Is over |