TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION B, 853 
than a decade this method of gold extraction has spread over the gold-producing 
countries of the world, now absorbing and now replacing the older processes, but 
ever carrying all before it—all this is already a twice-told tale which I should 
feel hardly justified in alluding to were it not for the fact that we are to-day 
meeting on the Rand where the infant process made its début nearly fourteen 
years ago. The Rand to-day is the richest of the world’s goldfields, not only in 
its present capacity, but in its potentialities for the future; twenty years ago its 
wonderful possibilities were quite unsuspected even by experts. 
It is not for me to describe in detail how the change has been accomplished ; 
this task will, we know, be far better accomplished by representative chemists who 
are now actively engaged in the work. But for the chemists of the British 
Association it is a fact of great significance that they are here in the presence of 
the most truly industrial development of gold production which the world has 
yet seen; a development moreover that is founded on a purely chemical process 
which for its continuance requires not only skilled chemists to superintend its 
operation, but equally skilled chemists to supply the reagent on which the 
industry depends. 
In 1889 the world’s consumption of cyanide of potassium did not exceed fifty 
tons per annum. ‘This was produced by melting ferrocyanide with carbonate of 
potassium, the clear fused cyanide so obtained being decanted from the carbide of 
iron which had separated. The resulting salt was a mixture of cyanide, cyanate, 
and carbonate which was sometimes called cyanide of potassium for the hardly 
sufficient reason that it contained 30 per cent. of that salt. When the demand 
for gold extraction arose, it was at first entirely met by this process, the requisite 
ferrocyanide being obtained by the old fusion process from the nitrogen of horns, 
leather, &c. In 1891 the first successful process for the synthetic production of 
cyanide without the intervention of ferrocyanide was perfected, and the increasing 
demand from the gold mines was largely met by its use. At present the entire 
consumption of cyanide is not much short of 10,000 tons a year, of which the 
Transvaal goldfield consumes about one-third. J.arge cyanide works exist in 
Great Britain, Germany, France, and America, so that a steady and sure supply 
of the reagent has been amply provided. In 1894 the price of cyanide in the 
Transvaal was 2s. per pound; to-day it is one-third of that, or 8d. During the 
prevalence of the high prices of earlier years the manufacture was a highly 
speculative one, and new processes appeared and disappeared with surprising 
suddenness, the disappearance being generally marked by the simultaneous vanish- 
ing of large sums of money. ‘'o-day the manufacture is entirely carried out in 
large works scientifically organised and supervised, and, both industrially and 
commercially, the speculative element has been eliminated. 
Chemistry has so often been called on to play the part of the humble and 
unrecognised handmaiden to the industrial arts that we may perhaps be pardoned 
if in this case we call public attention to our Cinderella as she shines in her 
rightful position as the genius of industrial initiation and direction. 
To this essentially chemical development of metallurgy we owe it that in 
a community whose age can only be counted by decades we find ourselves sur- 
rounded by chemists of high scientific skill and attainments who have already 
organised for their mutual aid and scientific enlightenment ‘The Johannesburg 
Society of Chemistry, Metallurgy, and Mining,’ whose published proceedings amply 
testify to the atmosphere of intellectual vigour in which the work of this great 
industry is carried on. 
It appears, then, that while gold still maintains its position of influence in the 
affairs of men, the nature of that influence has undergone an important change. 
Not only has its widespread use as the chief medium of exchange exercised far- 
reaching effects on the commence of the world, but the vastly increased demand 
for this purpose has in its turn altered the methods of production. These methods 
have become more highly organised and scientific, and gold production is now fairly 
established as a progressive industry in which scope is found for the best chemical 
and engineering skill and talent. 
The experience of more highly evolved industries in the older countries has 
1905. AA 
