OCR Text |
Show GOLD YIELD OF THE RAND. Notwithstanding the war, the Rand gold mines are increasing their output. out-put. At the beginning of the conflict, tho South African properties were yielding at the rate of $160,000,000 a year. During 1916, the production was nearly ?200,000,000 and the reef is this year equaling that record production. This enormous yield is a source of great financial strength to Great Brit-tain, Brit-tain, as It is helping to meet the foreign for-eign balances which the war is piling up against the British empire. Tho Rand was discovered in the early ear-ly eighties. The gold was found in a conglomerate, and geologists at the time said there could be no great permanency per-manency to the reef. But the mining engineers have gone on ever since digging dig-ging deeper and crushing a larger tonnage ton-nage until today the mines around Johannesburg are turning out more gold than all the United States and Australasia, which prior to tho discovery discov-ery of the Rand, were the great gold producers of the world. |