PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS SECTION ]!. 6l 



of the Pretoria series — of which I estimate that there are some 

 1,000,000,000 tons available — using cheap non-caking Transvaal 

 coal as fuel. South Africa should be able to export iron and steel 

 in competition with the great iron-producing countries of the 

 world. 



Iron Pyrite. 



Owing to the increasing difificulty of obtaining adequate 

 supplies of sulphur fron] Sicily and the United States, a consider- 

 able proportion of the sulphuric acid requirements of the large 

 explosive companies and other indnstrial concern'^ is now manu- 

 factured from pyrite mined, or obtained as a by-product of gold- 

 mining, in the Transvaal. The available reserves of the mineral 

 are considerable, and, as the acid can be made more cheaply from 

 local pyrite than from imported sulphur, there is every prosj^ect 

 of pyrite-mining becoming one of the permanent industries of the 

 country. 



Kaolin. 



Since the closing-down of the pottery at Olifantsfontein, 

 between Germiston and Pretoria, the only use to which kaolin 

 has been put in South Africa is the manufacture of whiting, 

 distempers, and wall paints, " Blanco," and the like. The prin- 

 cipal producers are the Sienna Paint Company, of Durban, who 

 obtain their kaolin from a deposit near Padleys Station, on the 

 Durban-Maritzburg railway. 



Lead. 



Small pockets and veins of galena occur and have been 

 worked at many localities in the Dolomite of the Transvaal 

 system in the Transvaal and on the Kaap Plateau. The mineral 

 is also found in fissure veins in the Pretoria series and in the 

 Waterberg sandstone formation, of which several are being 

 exploited. 



At the present time the lead output of the Union is derived 

 mainly from a vein in Waterberg sandstone, in the Blaauwberg 

 Range, in the northern part of the Zoutpansberg district of the 

 Transvaal, and from occurrences in the Dolomite. 



There is little prospect of any considerable increase in 

 production. 



A plant for the production of white lead from cerussite has 

 been erected at the Edendale lead mine, to the north of Hatherly. 



Zinc. 



There is no production of zinc or zinc ores in the Union at 

 present. The only important deposits hitherto discovered are in 

 the Malmani division of the Transvaal, near Ottoshoop, where 

 lead and zinc ores occur partly in the form of pipes and partly 

 in the form of disseminations in the Dolomite of the Transvaal 

 system. In 191 4 a concentrating plant was erected at the Blane- 

 Witkop Mine, jjnd was worked for a short time, but it was found 



