THE SOUTH AFRICAN GOLDFIELDS.

Evening Star, Volume VII, Issue 1918, 29 June 1869, Page 3

THE SOUTH AFRICAN GOLDFIELDS.

We take the following from a letter addressed by Mr L. W. Odell to the Rev. Mr Ludorf, of Durban, and published in the Natal Herald, of 15th April:— Tatin River, January 19. “My Dear Mr Ludorf, —1 take this opportunity of sending you a few lines, as we hear a waggon will be here in a day or two. I dare say you have been on the look-out for one ere this. We arrived all well on the 29th December, towards the evening, and not far from the working. I immediately went down one hole, about fourteen or fifteen feet deep, to examine it; but it presented no appearance of being a golden hole. Indeed, I was somewhat disappointed, although I was on the look out for a change of country along the way, but for 200 miles I saw none to indicate to me that we were near payable gold-fields. The country all along is too flvt and sandy ; the rivers are full of coarse sand, and the country in general, as far as I saw, bearing too many marks of the ravages of the sea to find mxxch gold. I have been to the mount upon which five ovens or furnaces have been erected by the natives. They are enclosed in a wall that has been built around them, I think for protection. The enclosure is about fifty to sixty yards across ; the walls about four feet thick and about five feet or more high ; the stones are laid in an ornamental fa.slii.oii inside, and bear the appearance of pictures. The ovens appear to be built round, of about five feet across, and of a conical shape, and have evidently been used for smelting iron, as the clinkers indicated that were lying round about. They were dark stones, very light and porous, somewhat like a sponge, I have seen and examined all the workings, both the alluvial and the quartz reefs as they are called. The alluvial diggings up to the present are worthless ; there is nothing but a speck oxtwo of gold to be foxuxd ixx them. About four miles or so from here there are other native workings through quax-tz, I believe five ixx number, and at these there are two stoxxes I saw with holes in them which were shown me by one of the diggers as having been used for crushing the quartz. They had holes in them about five oxsix inches deep, and the same across, with stones to fit, axxd, I believe, were used for that purpose. One of these workings was about eighteen or twentyyards across and about twenty feet deep. I went with Mr Todd to sink it a little deeper, to see if they had goxxe through a x-eef. We sunk about six feet, and could find no trace of it. I think it is a mistaken notion to think the natives do not know how to extract gold from quartz. I am given to understand that there are, ixx this part of the country, more or less old w ox-kings of the quartz veins. I have been down axxd examined NixBlack’s hole, which, up to the prceent, has been the best—and took a friend with me. We knocked up about 2541b of the vexy best quartz we could find, which, when crushed axxd washed, yielded about half a pennyweight. The Gx-eytown. party, consisting of thx-ee men, crushed and washed about 50011], and got 18 grains; they tried again,, and washed nearly half a ton, axxd it yielded about Udwt. You will be surprised at this, and wonder where have all those rich specimens come from. I also could send yoxx a little specimen, which, I think, if sent for trial, would yield per toxx 500oz,; but x-eineinber, ixx searching these old workings, yoxx may look for days before yoxx cmx find oxxe with a speck of gold in it axxd break, it may be 500 or 1,000 pieces before yon caxx get it. Mr Black sxxnk about fortyeight or fifty feet through the schistose rock and through the quart/, veins; these veins are aboxxt foxxr to twenty inches bx-oad, and if yoxx could average one ouxxce per ton it would not pay Europeans to work it; there is so ! much labour to throw away ixx cutting away the other reefs that nxy friend and I could xxot sec how wc could oxx axx average, get more than 3 cwt. per day each man. A great deal of the quartz is not gold-bearhxg at all, there is such a quantity of the white alabaster marble appearance aboxxt it; plenty of this can be found but it is of no value. There ax-e large qxxaxxtities of ii-oxxstone aboxxt here and traces of copper.”