RICH REEF DISCOVERED

King Country Chronicle, Volume XXXI, Issue 4956, 16 February 1937, Page 2

RICH REEF DISCOVERED

o MAN WHO STARTED A GOLD RUSH “NOTHING ROMANTIC ABOUT IT.” London, January 23. A young man who was instrumental in starting South Africa’s latest “gold rush,” Mr. P. Langdale-Jones, has just come to London on holiday. But those who expected to hear a romantic tale from his lips were disappointed. “There was nothing romantic about the actual discovery,” he said. “The romance, if any, lies in the fact that the gold reef I struck has since been largely instrumental in increasing the value of West Wits gold shares to £20,000,000, 10s shares soaring last month to the phenomenal price of £l9. “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 subse-

quent 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. Longdale-Jones, “I was given the tip that Mr. J. Bancroft, a geologist famous in African mining circles, had staked his reputation that new goldfields were waiting to be discovered at Klerksdorp; and I went there in the hope of being able to ‘cash in’ on what nearly everyone considered a 100 to one chance. “In my capacity as a driller, I was engaged on the last of several experimental bore holes that were being sunk (by the usual means of drills with a cutting point of diamonds). “We had reached our depth limit of 4000 feet, and had given up all hope of finding Bancroft’s promised trea- , sure, when ‘I struck it rich.’ There is usually a ‘core grubber’ on these jobs whose special function is to empty the ‘core barrel' aj it is . brought up from the bowels of the

earth and take away the contents for secret inspection and assay, but on this occasion he 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 only one thing: Reef! “It was three o’clock in the morning. By eight o’clock I was in Klei*ksdorp to raise what little cash I could for my first gamble in gold shares; and, as I expected, it was not many weeks before my 10s shares began to rocket in 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."