192 Recollections of Adventures 



exploit it. Even as early as in 1866, while driving 

 from Pretoria to Potchefstroom, I noticed vertical 

 talcose slates on the north-west end of the Wit- 

 watersrand, but at the time was unable to mine 

 them. In 1860 and again in 1867, I found copper 

 near Pretoria, and in the Zoutpansberg district, but 

 the country was not ripe for mining base metals, and 

 there was no one to follow up my discoveries. In 

 1868 I located titanic iron lodes, north of Pretoria. 



As elsewhere more fully -explained, in the early 

 days (1870) I worked at the diamond fieldsIn 1872 

 I found and worked gold at Lydenberg. In 1876 

 Sir Theophilus Shepstone sent an Australian expert 

 (a Mr. Armfield) to me for information, as to likely 

 parts of the country to prospect for gold. I told him 

 that the Witwatersrand was a good formation, and 

 that colour of gold had been found in the creeks 

 issuing from the range. He went there, but confined 

 his prospecting to white-quartz reefs, so missed the 

 conglomerates, and was not successful in locating 

 a gold-reef. No further attempt was made at the 

 time to do this. All this led up to my very strong 

 belief in the possibility of finding gold in payable 

 quantities in the country. In 1883 my brother 

 Fred who was in Natal, returned to " The Willows." 

 He had had experience of gold -mining on Pil- 

 grim's Rest, and Lisbon - Berlin mines, and we 

 arranged a prospecting trip to Rooiberg, where he 

 discovered gold and ancient copper workings, but 

 he did not work these owing to lack of funds. In 

 1884 I purchased Jacoby's farm, Sterkfontein, and 

 Geldenhuis' farm, Wilge Spruit. Fred went to 

 inspect them and reported gold on them, and on 

 Honingnestkrantz. We worked a shaft on Sterk- 

 fontein, sent some ore to Johnson, Matthey & Co., 

 (in England) for analysis, and it gave favourable 



