r.M'K COLONY AND SOUTH AFRICA. 



CIIK.MISTRY. (CHEMICAL TUEOBY.) 129 



eluded liy the Kxecutive on April 12, by which 

 it appeared (hat Krtlger received 7,881 votes and 

 (ien. .louliert 7,009. As the Joubert party con- 

 tinued to throw doubt upon the re.Milt. President 

 r declared that ho would not enter upon 

 the oilire until the scrutiny was confirmed by the 

 Vnlksraad. This was done, and he was sworn in 

 on Ma\ I.'. 



Tim Gold-Fields. The number of white 

 men employed at the end of 1892 in gold min- 

 ing in the districts of Witwatersrand and Heidel- 

 :. which embrace Johannesburg, Boksburg, 

 igersdorp, Florida, Doornkop, and Heidel- 

 :. was 2,952, and the number of blacks was 

 21,619. There were 2,440 stamps in operation, 

 and the output for the last quarter of 1892 was 

 ;ii;i.(il2 ounces, having a value of 1,100,329. 

 In the De Caap mines at Barberton 12,645 

 ounces, worth 43,250, in Little Leteba 6,346 

 ounces, worth 22,309, and in Lydenburg 6,108 

 ounces, worth 21,508, were produced, making 

 the total output for that quarter of the principal 

 gold fields 342,653 ounces, worth 1,201,028. 

 When gold was first discovered, in 1886, in con- 

 glomerate beds on the southern slope of the 

 W it wutersrand range, which is the watershed 

 between the east and west coasts of Africa, there 

 was a rush of gold-seekers, who supposed that 

 gold could be obtained as easily as from the allu- 

 vial deposits in California and Australia. Claims 

 were staked off and bought and sold at extrava- 

 gant prices, and companies were formed for the 

 purpose of gambling in shares on the London 

 Stock Exchange. Ihe directors who were in 

 earnest were not experienced in the business, 

 and few of the managers of the mines were ex- 

 perts in gold-mining. Even those who were 

 were ignorant of the new and peculiar character 

 of this reef. The machinery sent out was not 

 suitable, and the lack of trained persons to work 

 it. and the costliness of supplies and transporta- 

 tion, made the expenses of operation dispropor- 

 tionately high. When the fever of speculation 

 lied away and no more money was to be had 

 the pockets of European shareholders the 

 managers applied themselves to the problem of 

 inking the mines pay dividends. They require 

 musually costly and elaborate mining plants 

 nd reduction machinery, and the management 

 lust be economical, because there is no remark- 

 "jly rich ore. The product of the Rand in 1887 

 *as 35.000 ounces, valued at 120,000. In 1892 

 the yield had grown to 1,200,000 ounces, valued 

 t 4,250,000. The Transvaal now ranks below 

 ie United States, Russia, and Australasia as a 

 ild-producer, but experts believe that the 

 iroduct will go up to 10,000,000 a year in the 

 'Vilwatersrand alone. Hamilton Smith, an 

 American mining engineer, who has made a 

 tudy of the main reef, from which 2,000,000 

 .mres of bullion have been extracted, or two 

 lirds of the total product of the district, finds 

 :mt the outcrop has a length of 11 miles, with 

 an average thickness of 5 feet, and that the dip 

 is about 35 degrees. He believes that the beds 

 <>f " banket" or conglomerate, in which the gold 

 is found in fine particles adjoining the pebbles, 

 continue in probably the same thickness and 

 richness throughout the formation, but that the 

 of the basin is much deeper than the 

 can be mined. If, as is likely, it is possible 

 VOL. xxxin. 9 A 



to sink the mines to a depth of 5,200 feet along 

 the dip, or 3,000 feet below the surface, the gold 

 that can be obtained from the main reef would 

 be 215,000,000 in value. The mining claims 

 under the Transvaal laws are staked out on tin; 

 surface of the ground. The owners of the 

 mines that are in active operation neglected to 

 obtain rights to the ground for more than a 

 short distance below the outcrop, as a monthly 

 license fee must be paid for every claim. Other 

 capitalists have acquired claims on the dip, and 

 a syndicate has been formed, with a capital of 

 1,000,000, to sink vertical shafts on the "deep- 

 level " claims and raise the ore to the surface. 

 Of the 36 mining companies now working the 

 main reef 21 are making a profit, and several 

 others are in a fair way to become profitable. 

 The average yield is 12^ pennyweights per ton 

 of ore, though in their reports "the mining com- 

 panies have claimed a higher percentage. 



CHEMISTRY. Chemical Theory. In a re- 

 view, made in his presidential address before the 

 chemical section of the British Association, Prof. 

 Emerson Reynolds described the chemical work 

 of the year as substantial in character, although 

 almost unmarked by discoveries of popular in- 

 terest. In this category may be placed the 

 measure of success which M. Mersson has at- 

 tained in the artificial production of the dia- 

 mond form of carbon, apparently in minute crys- 

 tals similar to those recognized by Koenig, 

 Mallard, Daubree, and Friedel, in the supposed 

 meteorite of CaBon del Diablo, Arizona. Not 

 less interesting or valuable are the studies of 

 Dr. Perkins on electro-magnetic rotation ; of 

 Lord Rayleigh on the relative densities of gases ; 

 of Dewar on chemical relations at extremely low 

 temperatures ; of Clowes on exact measurements 

 of flame-cap indications afforded by miners' 

 testing lamps; of Horace Brown and Morris on 

 the chemistry and physiology of forage leaves, 

 by which they have been led to the conclusion 

 that cane sugar is the first sugar produced dur- 

 ing the assimilation of carbon, and that starch 

 is formed at its expense as a more stable reserve 

 material for subsequent use of the plant ; and of 

 Cross, Bevan, and Beadle on the interaction of 

 alkali-cellulose and carbon bisulphide, in the 

 course of which they proved that a cellulose resi- 

 due can act like an alcohol radical in the forma- 

 tion of thiocarbonates. " When we consider the 

 drift of investigation in recent years," Prof. 

 Reynolds continues, " it is easy to recognize a 

 distinct reaction from extreme specialization in 

 the prominence now given to general physico- 

 chemical problems and to those broad questions 

 concerning the relations of the elements, which 

 I would venture to group under the head of ' com- 

 parative chemistry.' Together, these lines of in- 

 quiry afford promise of more definite informa- 

 tion about the real nature of the seventy or more 

 entities we term ' elements,' and about the mech- 

 anism of that mysterious yet definite change 

 in matter which we call 'chemical action. " 

 Thus, a curious side-light seems to be thrown on 

 the nature of the elements by the chemico-phys- 

 ical discussion of the connection existing between 

 the constitution of certain organic compounds 

 and the colors they exhibit. While we have no 

 knowledge of the origin of the chemical ele- 

 ments, much suggestive work has recently been 



