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KNOWLEDGE & SCIENTIFIC NEWS. 



[July, 1905. 



air is crisp, clear and invigorating, and the power of 

 the sun pleasant The nights are cold, as many as 20 

 degrees of frost having been recorded. In summer at 

 no time is it insufferably hot. Persons afflicted with an 

 hereditary tendency to consumption, or those suffering 

 from overwork in business, will find these " mountain 

 climates " promise a return to health. The therapeutic 

 elements of a good climate are these, viz., abundance 

 of sunshine without excessive heat, allowing of an open- 

 air life all the year round, pure air, and a temperature 

 adapted to the requirements of the invalid. To these 

 essentials may be added the inestimable boon of neces- 

 sarily conforming to and living the " simple life." 



(c) If the characteristic essentials of a desert climate 

 are advocated, consisting of warmth, dryness, purity of 

 air, and large radiation, these are found in the 

 expanses of the Kalahari Desert and Great Karoo. 

 Probably no country is to be found where an outdoor 

 life is so practicable winter and summer as in South 

 Africa, and in which the traveller will find greater varia- 

 tion of or more majestic scenery. The seeker after 

 health, who owns a fair amount of muscular power 

 and activity, will find a long trek in a well-provisioned 

 ox-waggon, say, through Natal to the Transvaal, a 

 sure guide to the restoration of full mental and bodi'y 

 vigour. The features of the scenery encountered are 

 among the most sublime in Nature, while strikingly dis- 

 tinct from that of other lands. 



NOTES. 



Gold-mining and Labour. 



When the South African war broke out (October, iSgg), 6240 

 stamps were providing employment for over 110,000 natives, 

 and gold was being produced at the rate of /"20,ooo,ooo per 

 annum. Three companies restarted milling in May, igoi ; but 

 at the end of 1903 only 64,000 "boys" were at work on the 

 Witwatersrand, and only 4360 stamps were crushing, out of a 

 total of 7145 erected. The latter were capable of employing 

 142,000 "boys" under the best economic conditions, while 

 30,000 more were required for mines merely in the develop- 

 ment stage. There was, however, a proved deficiency of 

 108,000 natives, and moreover it was estimated that within 

 the next five years a total of 11,000 stamps additional to 

 those then existing might be erected. The Labour Impor- 

 tation Ordinance came into force May 19, 1904, and the 

 first shipment of Chinese as mine-workers arrived at 

 the New Comet Mine at the end of June, 1904. From the de- 

 tails supplied by members of the Transvaal Chamber of Mines 

 and other companies it was shown that unskilled native 

 labourers in employment at the end of 1904 numbered 77,014, 

 and Chinese coolies (indentured) 20,396. These, with about 

 2000 Cape " boys " and Indians, made up a total of 99,623. 

 The numbers at work on the 31st of May last were: Natives, 

 96,226; and Chinese, 40,117. At the end of December, 1904, 

 the skilled and unskilled white labourers at work on the 

 surface or in the mines numbered 14,173, and the wages bill 

 came to ;f 4.337.256- At the beginning of June, 1905, the 

 number so employed was 16,626. On the Rand alone 5555 

 stamps were in operation at the end of December, 1904, and 

 during the whole year 8,058,296 tons were crushed, the yield 

 from the mills, cyanide and other reduction works being 

 3,638,241 02s. of fine gold, of a total value of ;{■! 5,529,2 19, or 

 38-46 shillings per ton crushed. In April, 1905, 6665 stamps 

 were in operation in the whole of the Transv.ial, and a tonnage 

 of 929,268 was milled for a yield of ;f 1,695,550, as against 

 a monthly average of /; 1, 337,000 in 1904. The total produc- 

 tion in the Transvaal to the end of May amounted to 

 ;f 132.765.S70 ; for 1904 the total was ;£■ 16,054,809, or more than 

 one-fifth of the world's productioD during the year, estimated 

 at /■7i,898,7i3- 



Big Game Extermination, 



The greater part of the^country which will be visited by 

 the members of the British Association possesses special 

 interest for the naturalist from the circumstance that it was 

 once the home of a multitude of big game animals, the like 

 of which was unknown in any other part of the world's regions 

 within the historic period. Their numbers, however, have 

 been decimated through the avarice or improvidence of 

 civilized man, aided in some measure by the native races, fol- 

 lowing their acquirement of and subsequent familiarity with 

 the use of fire-arms. Within modern times the tract of 

 country in South-East .Vfrica where these big game animals 

 abounded most was probably the plains of Bechuanaland, 

 the Orange Kiver, and the Transvaal, parts of which formed 

 the hunting-ground of Gordon-Cumming and other pioneer 

 sportsmen, but earlier the plains of Cape Colony were popu- 

 lated by a vast fauna of large and beautiful game animals. 

 At the conunencement of the Dutch occupation we read of 

 white rhinoceroses being met with quite close to Cape Town. 

 The Dutch, however, were not long in perceptibly decreasing 

 the number of big game in the country ; and one beautiful 

 species of antelope, the bluebuck, or blaauwbok, seems to 

 have been exterminated at a very early date. But some 

 excuse for the vigorous efforts of these Dutch pioneers to thin 

 out the animals which occurred in such swarms in the newly- 

 colonised country may be found, for about the middle of 

 the 17th century we read of their gardens being raided by 

 elands and kudus, and their larger crops destroyed by the 

 incursions of rhinoceroses and hippopotamuses ; while on one 

 occasion a slender garrison was actually iu fear of the fort 

 being stormed by a frontal attack of lions. Gradually the 

 game was driven further and further up country, though a 

 sufiicient percentage remained for the sportsman and 

 naturalist. It was not till after 1837 (twenty-two years prior 

 to this the explorer Burchell had crossed the Orange Kiver 

 and entered Bechuanaland) that the Boers trekked to the 

 districts now known as the Orange River Colony and the 

 Transvaal, and, once there, the fierce pursuit of the game, 

 which, as we have seen, had taken place in Cape Colony, was 

 repeated, but at a more rapid rate, owing to improvements in 

 fire-arms, and the operations of the " skin-hunters," who shot 

 down the animals by tens of thousands, prompted by the 

 commercial uses to which their hides could be put. Between 

 the years iS4oand 1875 the destruction of animals in the old 

 republics, it is safe to say, might be reckoned by millions. 

 According to report, in the year i860 one specially notable 

 " drive " was instituted, and for this occasion some 25,000 

 head of game were enclosed, of which it was computed that 

 upwards of 6000 were slaughtered. The settlers realised the 

 market value of the herds of big game with which the veld of 

 the Orange River Colony and the Transvaal was at that time 

 swarming, and took full advantage of their opportunities. By 

 about 1880 a clean sweep of the game had l)een made, and 

 today one may wander over those same plains which, in 

 Gordon-Cumming's time, were actually blackened by the pre- 

 sence of roaming animals, without seeing even a single herd of 

 game, or, at most, nothing more than a few springbok as sur- 

 vivors. Nor was the destruction confined to skin-hunting; 

 ivory was an even more valuable commodity, and so keen 

 has been the pursuit that there are now but few districts re- 

 maining where elephant-hunting for profit can any longer 

 be regarded as pr.aclicable. 



From Cape Colony to the Transvaal the effort is too late 

 for effective game preservation, and all that can be done is to 

 preserve the scattered herds of the surviving rarer species till 

 such time as they perish from inand-in-breeding. In 

 Rhodesia and other neighbouring districts the outlook is more 

 hopeful, and whatever is possible under existing circum- 

 stances is being done to ensure the preservation of a portion 

 at least of the g.ime. As colonisation and civilisation spread, 

 the wild animals of the country will inevitably tend to dis- 

 appear, and, however unwillingly, we must face a time when, 

 notwithstanding international co-operation, a large portion of 

 Africa will be as destitute of big game as are the more fre- 

 quented districts of Cape Colony and the Transvaal at the 

 present day. 



