STARTED GOLD RUSH

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIII, Issue 37, 13 February 1937, Page 10

STARTED GOLD RUSH

SOUTH AFRICAN FIND.

10/ SHARES SOAR TO £19,

STRIKER MADE ONLY FEW HUNDRED. (Special.—By Air Mall.) LOJ<DO>., January 23. A young man who was instrumental in starting South Africa's latest gold rush Mr. P. Langdale-Jones, lias just come to London qn holiday. But those who expected to hear a romantic tale from his lips were disappointed. "There was nothing romantic about the actual discovery," lie said. . "The romance, if any, lies in'the fact that the gold reef I struck has since beeu largely instrumental in increasing the value of West Wits gold shares to £20,000,000, 10/ shares soaring last month to the phenomenal price of £19.

"All I made out of it was a few hundreds, and that was only by the greatest good fortune, for, as a diamond driller employed at a fixed salary, I had no actual right to an extra penny. The gold 'rush' was the subsequent rush to buy shares, for the find itself was typical of the prosaic way in which new goldfields are usually found to-day.

"While working in Johannesburg," added Mr. Langdale-Jones, "I was given the tip.that Mr. J. Bancroft, a geologist famous in African mining circles, find stake;! his reputation that new goldfields were waiting to be discovered at Kierksdorp, and I went there in the hope of being able to 'cash in' on what nearly everyone considered a hundred to one. chance. In my capacity as a driller I was engaged on the last of several experimental boreholes that were being sunk (by the usual means of drills with a cutting point of diamonds).

"Wo had reached our depth limit of 4000 ft and had given up all hope of finding Bancroft's promised treasure when I 'struck it rich.' There is usually a 'core grabber on these jobs whose special function is to empty the 'core barrel' as it is brought up from the bowels of the earth and take away the contents for secret inspection and assay, hut on this occasion lie was absent and I was emptying the stuff myself. As I did so for the last time on my shift I saw the whitish pebbles among the debris of rock and oil which mean onlv one thine' Reef! ' .•

"It was three o'clock in the morning. By eight o'clock I was ill Klerksdorp to raise what little rash I could for iny first gamble in gold shares, nnd, as I expected, it was not many weeks before ■■ my 10/, shares began to rocket ir. value. I sold out when they reached £5 and I only wish now that I had had the nerve and patience to hold them for a few months longer."