PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS — SECTION B. 43 



This is, perhaps, all the more true because to the study of 

 interesting geological problems there is frequently added that 

 touch of human interest, the absence of which so often makes 

 itself felt to the geologist who is frequently called upon to carry 

 on investigations in remoter districts of the country. 



In dealing, therefore, with the development of a mining field, 

 and some of the relationships of the mineral industry generally 

 to the life and progress of a young country, I hope to have chosen 

 a subject which will not be without interest both for geologists 

 and for those interested in the many other allied branches of 

 scientific work who come at some time or another into connection 

 with the development of the mineral resources of the country. 



If it should appear that, in choosing my examples, undue 

 prominence has been given to certain mining fields, my excuse 

 must be that, by dealing with subjects with which one is most 

 familiar, one is the more likely to bring out some point of view 

 which may be of interest to otheiis. Both from a purely 

 geological and from an economic point of view, the Witwatersrand 

 gold field has proved by far the most interesting mineral 

 occun-ence with which I have come into contact in the course 

 of many years of geological work, and it furnishes, at the same 

 time, a most useful example of the extent to which a mineral 

 deposit may influence the general development of a young 

 country. It may be of interest to review the stages by which 

 it has attained its present position, in what way it has been 

 assisted by or has stimulated research in various branches of 

 science, and to inquire as to what extent we may look to other 

 possible mineral fields to provide additional avenues of industry 

 in the future. 



Situated almost in the centre of Southern Africa, we have 

 in the Witwatersrand one of the greatest and most productive 

 mining fields in the world, certainly by far the most productive 

 gold field, whether we naeasure it by actual current production 

 or by the aggregate of the gold hitherto won. 



For a gold field, it has already attained a fairly long life, 

 especially when we consider the progressive increase in its out- 

 put, until the change of conditions" brought about by the late war 

 affected it in common with so many other still older and more 

 firmly established industries, and when we also take into account 

 that it promises to continue to be the most important gold field 

 in the world for yet a long time to come. 



The development of the Eand may be said to have been 

 comparatively slow, as gold fields go, and a very large proportion 

 of those living in its vicinity found it already an established fact 

 when they first came to the district. Partly on this account, 

 perhaps, and partly because of the widely ramifying nature of its 

 influence, the important bearing of such a mining field on the 

 development of a young country like South Africa is not generally 

 appreciated even by those who dwell within easy reach of the 

 field itself, while by the inhabitants of more distant parts of the 



