Nitroglycerin l: Explosive:?. io.? 



slatemfnt to make, lnii consider for one niumeni what has been done 

 throtigh their agency. Railways have been made through places- 

 formerly thought impassable and impossible; tunnels have beeu 

 bored; harbours made safe for the entry of ships; docks have been 

 blasted; and we all know what tremendous influences are exerted 

 by the railway and b\ the steamboat. People who ought to know 

 say that the wealth of France and its recuperative powers are almost 

 entirelv due to the splendid s\stem of roads inaugurated by 

 Napoleon, but no system of roads could ever do for France, or for 

 anv other country, what the railways are doing now all over the 

 world. Could South Africa be what it is to-day without railways, 

 and can it progress industriallv or cc^mmercially without them ? 

 Speaking of South African Railways in particular, however, reminds 

 me that from the point of view of the explosive manufacturer their 

 development does not appear to ha\e in\olved the use of very much 

 explosive, becau.se. wherever there is a difficulty in the way, the 

 engineer, instead of calling in the mighty aid of explosives, has gone 

 several miles round the corner to avoid it. This by the way. 



Of course, nitro-glycerine explosives are employed for mining 

 purpo.ses more than for anything else, and in South Africa we can 

 safely say that no other kind has ever been used to any extent. The 

 Rand could never have been what it is now without nitro-glycerine. 

 During the twelve months prior to the war, 1.3-15 million tons 

 of gold-bearing rock were mined simplv to put through the batteries, 

 but it is impossible to estimate how many more millions were blasted 

 in such work as shaft-sinking, development and prospecting. Gold 

 has l»een the making of South Africa, and it will yet make it one of 

 the wealthiest and most wonderful countries of the world. Who 

 is there among us here who can foretell what this country will be 20 

 years hence? It is the few who are pessimists. Why, we have 

 millions upon millions of tons of coal, iron and limestone lying side 

 by side, and if it were not for that bugbear, labour, we who are 

 optimists could look forward to the day when the High Veld would 

 rival Pitt.sburg. Swansea. Durham and Cardiff — when we have the 

 railways. We live in a white man's countr}\ and must dream white 

 man's dreams. There is nothing impossible, and long after the 

 present Rand is worked out. there will be plenty of scope for the 

 ambitious in other directions. What benefits the Rand, benefits the 

 whole of South Africa. I look forward to the day when industries 

 of all kinds will spring up. They cannot help doing so, but the 

 backbone of the whole must always be gold. I am not speaking of it 

 in the sordid but in the industrial sense, and I say now, with all 

 seriousness, that the progress of South Africa will go hand in hand 

 with the increased use of the subject-matter of this paper. 



