AN OLD REPORT ON THE COPPER FIELD OF 



NAMAQUALAND. 



By Arthur William Rogers, M.A., Sc.D., F.G.S. 



When I was enquiring for early accounts of the copper- 

 bearing region of Namaqualand, Mr. Graham Botha, Keeper of 

 the Archives in Capetown, showed me the reix>rt which is printed 

 below. This report, of which there are three copies bound in 

 " Attestatien," Vol. i (1688-1698), was written by Friederich 

 Mathias van Werlinckhof, who went to Namaqualand with 

 Simon van der Stel in 1685. It may be the first report on a 

 mining venture ever written in South Africa. 



Van der Stel's journal of the expedition does not mention 

 van Werlinckhof by name, but he is presumably the man re- 

 ferred to by van der Stel as " de berghopman." He was a 

 passing visitor at the Cape, and nothing further al)out him is 

 known to me. 



The spot where prospecting was begun, " aan de Witte- 

 iDOomen, drie uiren van t' Fort," is evidently the place on the 

 Peninsula still known as " Silver Mine." 



When the expedition reached Namaqualand, work was 

 started on a ridge formed by a dyke of diorite and norite in 

 the gneiss five miles east of the present village of Springljok. 

 The ridge is called Koper Berg to-day, but in spite of much 

 prospecting during the past 60 years it has not yet been found 

 to contain a payable mine. A spot on the ridge has " 1685 " 

 cut in it in old-fashioned characters, and it is said that van der 

 Stel's initials were there until some vandal obliterated them by 

 cutting his own on the place where they used to be. This spot 

 is apparently the place called " FI. V. R." in the Report. 



There is, in the Library of the South African Museum, a 

 most interesting book of water-colour drawings of plants and 

 animals, done by someone connected with the expedition, and 

 on the first page of the book there are two sketches of scenery 

 on the copper field, one of which is a view of the Koper Berg 

 with van der Stel's camp in the foreground, and the other re- 

 presents a spot which I have not yet been able to identify.* 



*T have to thank Dr. W. F. Purcell for showing me this book. It 

 has the title " Plants et Animalia in Promontorio Bonae Spei Africes ad 

 naturam delineata et colorata Ao 1692, in usum cons. Amsteled.. nee non 

 Rerlim Orientalium. Directoris Nicolai Witsen " ; and it is inscribed 

 " Dit Werk is voor mi> aan de Kaap gemaakt, N. Witsen, 1692." 



The frontispiece is thus described : " A. A. Dit is de Coperberg, 

 door den E. Heer Commandeur Simon van der Stel, den 21 Octob : 

 1685, ondect, en ruij 10 mijlen verre personelijk gevisitecrt, en door- 

 gaens een gank en ader die von onder uijt den grond op, tot den top 

 van den berg klimt, en ten minsten van 8 tot 9 voeten, dog merendeels 

 van 2 3-3 roede breedte ganschelijk van cen coleur, en met Spaans-groen 

 uijtgeslagen bevonden. H. V. R. Een berg gansch en geheel uijt Coper- 

 ertz. van boven tot beneden toe, bevonden, dierhalven aldaer wel 18 

 voeten diep gegraven, en hand over hand rijcker mineral ten voorschijn 

 gekomen is." 



