398 HITTITES IN AFRICA. 



A consideration of the number and extent of these ancient 

 workings makes it evident that the total gold production of 

 Rhodesia, from first to last, has been very great, and although 

 any estimate of what this quantity has been can only be the 

 roughest of approximations, I feel convinced, from calculations 

 of the tonnage mined in certain very limited areas, that any 

 estimate which has been published is far more likely to be under 

 than over the mark. 



This conclusion (or assumption) concerning the magnitude 

 of the gold production of Rhodesia in the past, must necessarily 

 have some bearing on any attempt which may be made to deter- 

 mine the date at which the gold-bearing rock was mined. I find 

 it difficult to believe, for instance, that so large an amount of gold 

 can have been taken out of Rhodesia in mediaeval times without 

 some more definite record, than seems to exist, of its export being 

 left, and even if no other record had remained, I should have 

 expected so great an augmentation of the gold supoly to have 

 been more strongly reflected, than seems to be the case, on the 

 economic conditions of the world of that time. 



In view of what follows, it may here be noted that the augmen- 

 tation of the world's gold supply, during the early centuries of 

 the Christian era, seems to have been small. In the Roman 

 Empire at any rate, the available supply of gold was constantly 

 diminishing for many hundred years, if one may judge by the 

 continued rise in its purchasing power, the frequent tampering 

 with the currency and the succession of financial crises. 



It is important to note, that the gold production of Rhodesia 

 has not come to any great extent from alluvial workings, or from 

 mere shallow holes in the surface, or in the sides of hills, but has 

 been obtained by systematic mining carried on by experienced 

 miners, skilled according to the skill of their times, miners who 

 understood the sinking of shafts, the driving of adits, the break- 

 ing of rock and the following up, not only of the gold-bearing 

 veins, but also of the more profitable sections of these veins. 



There has sometimes been a tendency, I think, to under- 

 estimate the skill and experience which must have been possessed 

 by these anc-ent miners, and to overlook the importance of this 

 point as a clue to their identification. There is no need to labour 

 the point ; but as a matter of fact, the trifling and often useless 

 results which can be achieved in mining by inexperienced men, 

 with a great output of energy, is almost incredible, the following 

 up of gold-bearing veins also, and of the more profitable sections 

 of thpse veins is by no means at all times a simple matter, but is 

 a matter which requires constant care and watchfulness, the 

 facility with which the reef can be lost, the tendency to follow up 

 some unprofitable vein or some cleavaee in the rock by mistake, 

 and the constantly recurring difficulties which arise from dis- 

 turbances in the formation, have to be experienced to be under- 

 stood. At the present time, there are doubtless many profitable 

 claims which lie abandoned owing to the inexperience of those 

 who worked them. Even on the Rand, as those who make a 

 study of mining reports may have noticed, it has not been an 

 unknown experience for stretches of profitable rock to have been 



