lOO SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 83 



Upon his arrival at Broken Hill the writer was rather astonished 

 to find the whole region for many miles in every direction to be a 

 great, loosely forested plateau, perfectly level except for a small 

 " kopje " situated near the railway tracks as one nears the Broken 

 Hill mine and settlement. This little hill, only about 90 feet high, 

 is said to resemble closely the former " broken " hill which gave us 

 the Rhodesian man and which has now been removed through mining 

 operations.' 



The plateau of the town of Broken Hill is 3,874 feet above sea 

 level. Up to the time of the commencement of mining operations it 

 was a part of a vast, featureless, more or less openly forested region. 

 But the minerals in the two kopjes — lead and zinc — may have been 

 known to the natives in earlier times. At all events, in digging ditches 

 and in other surface excavations about the mines and in the town, 

 there are being found, buried as deep as 8 feet below the present 

 surface, old primitive native smelters, with here and there some 

 negro pottery indicating probably former burials. Mr. J. H. Hay- 

 ward in charge of the surface works, has found such an old primitive, 

 probably negro smelter under the roots of a big tree, and he led the 

 writer to a ditch where 6 to 8 feet below the surface were seen in situ 

 large fragments of thick black native pottery. There evidently existed 

 here at one time a native settlement, the men of which worked some 

 ore. The smelters may, however, have been used for iron or other 

 metal than those found in the two small local hills. 



The " broken " kopje consisted of hard dolomitic limestone im- 

 pregnated with lead, zinc salts, and vanadium. It was originally full 

 of crevices and holes, and had, as shown in the course of mining, at 

 least two large caves leading deep into the interior. The cave of spe- 

 cial interest became known as the bone cave. In the course of time it 

 had become filled with sand, soil, bones of animals, and detritus of 

 various kinds, which in turn were impregnated by seepage carrying in 

 solution mineral salts and lime. The salts formed incrustations on the 

 walls, here and there new ore deposits, and in general consolidated 

 most of the contents, bones included, into " pay ore." 



The kopje that yielded the " Rhodesian skull " was situated ap- 

 proximately northwest to west of the present railroad station, and 

 was about 50 feet high by 250 feet in its longer diameter. This entire 



^ In one of the accounts to be quoted later mention is made of several such 

 small hills, but only one and the remains of the one that gave the skull were seen 

 by the writer. 



