Lyspurn—Mining and Minerals in the Transvaal, ete. 19 
gold in the beds of the Witwatersrandt; I now propose to give a 
succinct account of other localities in which gold has been proved 
to exist. 
Gold was first discovered in 1869, in the North-Eastern 
Transvaal, in a district embracing the Zoutpansburg, Houtbosch- 
burg, Murchison, and Letaba goldfields. The gold occurs in 
quartz reefs, which are mostly of the bedded-vein type, true 
fissure veins being rarely encountered. The reefs are interstra- 
tified with schistose rocks. Mining at present is at a standstill 
in this district. Auriferous stibnite has been discovered in the 
Murchison district. 
Gold in the De Kaap or Lydenburg Districts —The Lydenburg 
district consists of an extensive plateau, dipping about eight 
degrees to the west; the strata lie partly unconformably on the 
Swazieland schists, and partly on the rocks forming the low 
country. It may be divided into four systems :— 
1. The underlying schists. 
2. The Drakensburg sandstones and quartzite. 
3. The dolomitic limestones. 
4. ‘The upper schists and sandstones. 
The gold-bearing beds are found in the Drakensburg system, 
in the dolomite beds, and in the upper schists and sandstones. 
The conglomerate bed of the Kaapsche Hoop, or Devils’ kantoor, 
contains gold, but up to the present in unremunerative quantity. 
This conglomerate is highly mineralized with iron pyrites, the 
pebbles ranging from a smoky quartz to white. The cement is 
coarser than that of the Witwatersrandt. 
The Dolomite beds.—The auriferous reefs found in these beds 
consist of quartz and pyrites, with occasional bands of chert, con- 
taining manganese. ‘The gold occurs in the cavities left vacant 
by the chemical decomposition of the iron pyrites. Diorite sheets 
always accompany the reef, and range from the “ hanging-wall”’ 
to the “ foot-wall.” 
On the property of the Barrett Gold Mining Company, sheets 
of a highly felspathic igneous rock occur. They are much de- 
composed, and intersected by quartz veins, which however seldom 
sarry gold, which only occurs in the igneous sheets. 
C2 
