Gold Quartz Mining, Johannesburg, South Africa

Gold Quartz Mining, Johannesburg, South Africa

Categories
Special Collections > Keystone Slides
Type
tiff scanned file from original glass slide
Description
How would you like to work 1200 feet underground? That is what these men are doing. You are in one of the famous gold mines of South Africa. The discovery of gold in South Africa caused it to be settled rapidly by whites. There are three ways of mining gold. These are (1) panning gold out of sand; (2) hydraulic mining; that is washing down the gravel by water; (3) quartz mining. It is quartz mining you see here. Gold lies in veins, usually mixed with rock. These veins are called mother lodes. The idea of quartz mining is to tap the lode, and break the gold-bearing rock into small pieces. These pieces are run through large stamping mills that free the gold from the rock. The mine here consists of a main shaft, fitted with elevators. The elevators carry the men to and from work, and also lift the quartz rock to the surface. From the main shaft side shafts are drilled at different levels. The men are working on the 10th level below the surface. These levels are also connected by smaller shafts. The rock in this way is honeycombed with tunnels. In most mines, drills run by machinery are used in breaking loose the quartz. But in South Africa negro help is cheaper than machinery. You see two darkeys working with hammer and chisel. A white man is directing them. This mine is in the Witerwatersrand (wt´ r wat´ rs-rnd) gold fields of the Transvaal. The city of Johannesburg is near by. It is a city of 240,000 people, half of whom are blacks. The Transvaal is a province of the Union of South Africa. It is as large as Illinois and Iowa together. It is in the main a stock raising country. Pretoria is the capital, and is also the seat of the governor of the Union. Keystone ID: 11979 Note: All titles, descriptions, and location coordinates are from the original Keystone Slide documentation as supplied by the Keystone View Company. No text has been edited or changed.
Rights
Copyright by the Keystone View Company. The original slides are housed in McConnell Library's Special Collections.