Old African Gold Mines.

Timaru Herald, Volume LXXVIII, Issue 11998, 21 February 1903, Page 1 (Supplement)

Old African Gold Mines.

("The Youth's Companion.'")

Rhodesia, or British Zambesi ranks among the chief gold-bearing countries of the world. The ancients mined and -carried away enormous quantities of the precious metal, but under the scientific mining systems of the present day their operations will be greatlv surpassed. In the recently published work on the " Ancient Ruins of Rhodesia." the authors, Messrs Hall and Xeal. endeavour to discover who the ancients were and whither the gold went. Perhaps Rhodesia was the ancient land of Ophir. the land of the mysterious " King Solomon's mines." but the theory is sticngly combated by some investigators. The ancient gold workings are the basis of modern workings. For every ten sr.vnre miles of Rhodesia, there was one a: rient mine, that is. there are 75,000 old hr?es. which means that a stupendous wealth was dug out of the earth before the days cf

Cecil Rhodes. Much of this wealth must have gone to the north and east; it was probably wrought into the crown "f the Queen of Skeba. and filled the collers of Solomon.

The ancient smelting furnaces are still easy to recognise. They are sunk into the floor. The furnace blowpipes are made of the finest granite-powder cement, and the nozzles of the blowpipes are covered with splashes of gold. The linings of the holes are covered with specks of gold. When the first lining became worn by the heat, a fresh lining of cement of an excellent quality, which lias outlasted time, was smeared round on top of the old lining. One can take an old lining, split off the lavers with a knife and find gold splashes in abundance.

Apparently the ancients wasted gold lavishly. Gold has been found in large quantities in the form of pellets as large as buckshot in the vicinity of the furnaces, and also thrown away on the debris heaps outside of the old buildings. The tools of the ancier.t workers which have so far been discovered include a small soapstone hammer and burnishing stones of water-worn rock, to which gold Hill adheres. There are evidences that the ancients carried on an extensive industry in the manufacture of gold ornaments "and utensils. Thirty-five thousand dollars' worth of gold ornaments have ben taken in the last five years from the ruins of Matabeleland alone.