482 



NA TURE 



[March 22, 1906 



well be enforced in Africa. As it is, there is one 

 method adopted in the Western Congo, another in 

 South Africa, a third in East Africa, and a fourth in 

 West Africa and the Sudan. Mr. McLaren, in the 

 Kafir grammar under review, adopts the South African 

 standard ; the three clicks which Lepsius expresses 

 by /, /, and // are rendered (as they have been for half 

 a century) by c, q, and *. 



Now throughout Eastern Africa, c or ch is used 

 to express the palatal consonantal combination of ts 

 which in South Africa and many West African mis- 

 sionary grammars is rendered by tsh ; q is universally 

 used in North, North Central, and Western Africa 

 (besides by Lepsius) to transliterate the Arabic yj — 

 qof, a very explosive k, the old meaning of the Medi- 

 terranean q. X is used by the Congo missionaries 

 (following the Portuguese) as an equivalent for the 

 English sh (s), and by others as a convenient form 

 of the Greek x to express the strong guttural kh 

 (Scotch and German ch). On the other hand, kh, 

 sh, and zh in transliterations into Roman letters of 

 Hindustani and Arabic names are intended to be pro- 

 nounced literally like an aspirated k, s, and z. It is 

 therefore necessary for a logical orthography to adopt 

 c, q, and x for the purposes above mentioned, namely, 

 to represent the English ch, the Arabic cj and the 

 Greek %. Therefore it would be preferable to render 

 the South African clicks by other signs, such as those 

 proposed by Lepsius. 



For the practical purposes of those who wish to ac- 

 quire the Kafir language or arrive quickly at an 

 understanding of its main features, Mr. McLaren's 

 grammar may be very highly commended. 



H. H. Johnston. 



MINING LAW. 

 Mining Law of the British Empire. By Charles J. 

 Alford. Pp. xii + 300. (London: Charles Griffin 

 and Co., Ltd., 1906.) Price 8s. 6d. net. 



ALTHOUGH admirable treatises on mining law 

 for the guidance of lawyers have been written 

 by Rogers, Walmesley, McSwinney, Bainbridge, 

 Cockburn, and numerous foreign authors, the field 

 has by no means been exhausted; and Mr. Alford 's 

 work forms a welcome addition to technical literature. 

 Written with conspicuous literary skill by a mining 

 engineer of wide experience, it gives a concise 

 summary of the various codes of mining law of the 

 British possessions throughout the world, with well 

 considered remarks on their characteristics. The 

 term mining law is taken by the author to mean the 

 enactments that regulate the acquisition and tenure 

 of mining rights. Mining regulations, which control 

 the methods of working mines, receive merely in- 

 cidental mention. In the case of Great Britain, it is 

 true, the Mines Regulation Acts are quoted at some 

 length as models; but even in this case no reference 

 is made to the Amendment Act of 1903 or to the 

 numerous special statutes, of which fourteen are 

 cited in Sir C. Le Neve Foster's " Ore and Stone 

 Mining," that affect miners and workers in open pits 

 in this country. Indeed, Mr. Alford's chapter on the 

 NO. 1899, VOL. 73] 



mining law of Great Britain is the least striking in 

 the book. Mining in Great Britain is so largely a 

 matter of contract between lord and lessee, and so 

 largely concerned with non-metallic minerals, that 

 there is little scope for the comparative treatment of 

 the metal-mining rights and obligations that forms 

 so interesting a feature of the chapters dealing with 

 colonial laws. 



The historical study of the inception of mining law 

 receives, as is to be expected in a book of a purely 

 practical character, only brief mention, and the author 

 has refrained from the temptation of citing the 

 ancient statutes set forth in that delightful old work 

 on mining law, the " Fodinae Regales " of Sir John 

 Pettus, Knight (1670). Originally, the author tells 

 us, the minerals of the country were worked by slaves 

 or serfs for the benefit of the lords of the soil ; and 

 Mr. Alford would have added to the interest of his 

 note on the free miners had he mentioned the fact 

 that the last native-born Briton who was a slave in 

 Great Britain, died in the reign of Queen Victoria. 

 When the Queen ascended the throne, many men and 

 women were still living 'who had in their youth 

 borne a legal bondage in the collieries of Scotland. 

 Such miners received wages, but were not allowed 

 to move away from their master's estate. They were 

 bought and sold with the property ; and although they 

 were freed from their servitude by an Act passed in 

 1799, the slave taint stuck to their occupation for 

 many years. 



Mr. Alford divides his work into nineteen chapters, 

 dealing respectively with the principles of mining law, 

 and with the mining laws of Great Britain, British 

 India, Ceylon, Burma, the Malay Peninsula, British 

 North Borneo, Egypt (should not a word of explana- 

 tion have been given that Egypt is not a part of the 

 British Empire?), Cyprus, the Dominion of Canada, 

 British Guiana, the Gold Coast, Cape Colony, Natal, 

 the Orange River Colony, the Transvaal Colony, 

 Rhodesia, the Commonwealth of Australia, and New 

 Zealand. An analysis of the mining laws cited shows 

 a grouping of the principles of their construction into 

 two classes : — (1) that in which the State or a private 

 owner of mining property has the right to grant 

 concessions or leases ; and (2) that in which any in- 

 dividual, under specified restrictions, has the right to 

 locate a certain limited area of ground or claim and 

 to work or to dispose of it. It is surprising to learn 

 that five-sixths of all the mining areas of the world 

 are worked under the former system of titles. The 

 concession system of large prospecting areas, followed 

 by mining leases of limited areas, of which the present 

 mining law of Egypt is an example, appears to be 

 the most advantageous system of opening up an un- 

 explored country. 



As an authoritative statement of the conditions of 

 tenure of mining property under various laws, Mr. 

 Alford's book cannot fail to prove of great value to 

 all connected with mining in the colonies. The work 

 is most carefully and accurately done. There are, 

 however, a few slight omissions ; and in order to 

 make the survey of the mining law of the British 

 Empire complete, the author might with advantage 



