PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS SECTION B. 45 



Northern Ehodesia. In this case the mine did not build a railway, 

 but it partially determined the course of the main Cape to Cairo 

 line, and for a long time for-med its northern terminus. It is still 

 a mos-t striking experience, after travelling for twenty-four hours 

 from Victoria Falls, through country showing so little alteration 

 at the hands of man, suddenly in the midst of the wilderness to 

 come upon an active and bvisy mine like Broken Hill, and a 

 township which, though small, is larger than any other for 

 hundreds of miles in any direction. 



Yet the main ore body, which is the cause of all this activity 

 and development, scarcely exceeds 300 feet in its longest known 

 diameter, and would fomi even a less conspicuous spot on the 

 map than Tsumeb. It consists, however, of an unusually com- 

 pact and sohd mass of rich lead ore, surrounded by a shell of ores 

 of zinc, almost free from anything in the way of gangue or other 

 extraneous material, so that we have within what appears a vei-y 

 small compass a highly important mineral deposit. This deposit 

 originally formed a prominent and conspicuous kopje, rising 

 abruptly above the surrounding flat country, which attracted the 

 attention even of primitive m«n, for you will recall that it was 

 from a cave which could be entered from the surface of the kopje 

 that there was recently obtained the remarkable human skull 

 which has aroused so much interest among anthropologists in 

 Europe. It was. however, only in comparatively recent years 

 that this haunt of prdmitive man was recognised as the outcrop of 

 an important mineral deposit. 



I have chosen the two examples to which I have referred 

 because they clearly indicate the driving power which even com- 

 paratively small bodies of mineral may exert on the development 

 of, at least, that first necessity in opening up a young counti-y — 

 the provision of transport facilities — and I have chosen them more 

 especially because in both cases their effect has been quite clear 

 and is not obscured by the influence of other factors, such aB 

 must be taken into consideration in the case of a mining field of 

 quite another order of magnitude like the Witwatersrand. In 

 such a case the longer period over which the development of the 

 field has been spread, and its situation in the neighbourhood of 

 other centres of activity of vai'ious kinds, exhibiting a parallel 

 growth, render it less easy to recognise clearly the specific in- 

 fluence exerted by the gold field itself. In the direction to which 

 I have drawn attention in connection with my two former ex- 

 amples, however, that of transport facilities, it is only necessary 

 to glance at a railway map of South Africa to realize to what an 

 extent the railway system of a very large part of the Union has 

 been influenced by the gold field of the Eand. We see in it not 

 simply the objective of a single line of railway, but of many hnes 

 — a ganglion in the transport system, so to speak. I believe it 

 would be interesting and illuminative if the railway administration 

 would publish returns in such a way as to show the actual earn- 

 ings of the various main lines and branches in the South African 

 railway system. It is not likely, for many reasons, that this will 

 ever be done, but I do not fear contradiction wlien I say that the 



