Messrs. Chalmers ^ Hatch — Mashonaland 8f Mataheleland. 199 



quartz and liiglily ferruginous veinstuff. Much of the gold in the 

 Concession Hill deposit is visible to the naked eye, occurring in 

 a kind of arborescent crystalline form resembling a pattern of sea- 

 weed. On the south-west side of the hill there is an old stope from 

 2 to 5 feet wide and reaching a depth of 50 feet in hard rock. In 

 this stope an iron pick was found in such good preservation that 

 it hardly seems likely that the working is of very ancient date, and 

 the same may be said in other cases in which timbers showing 

 but little decay have been found at depths of 30 to 40 feet, or where 

 waste dumps occur neither overgrown nor to any extent mixed 

 with soil. 



Speaking generally of old workings in Ehodesia, the general 

 impression of those who have studied them is that they can be 

 assigned to no one period ; some say there were three distinct 

 periods, but there seems to be little evidence for so precise a con- 

 clusion. We saw no old shafts near the workings on Concession 

 Hill. It seems probable to us that in many cases the old miners 

 did not hoist mineral, but carried it up inclined foot-roads, along the 

 strike of the veins, as is done in Mexico and other less advanced 

 mining countries to this day. 



The town of Victoria is on the Pioneer Road from Tuli to 

 Salisbury and about 180 miles south of the capital. The new 

 township is rather more than a mile outside the actual gold belt, 

 being in the granite country lying to the north. The average width 

 of the schist formation may be taken roughly as between 10 and 11 

 miles. The greatest breadth is from Victoria towards Fern Spruit 

 and the Tokwe River, where it reaches a breadth of 20 miles. The 

 belt extends probably, as already stated, as far as Buluwayo in 

 Mataheleland. It has certainly been traced from the western 

 boundary of Mashonaland some 70 miles eastwards beyond the 

 Umbelique River, and there seems little doubt that it continues 

 to the Sabi River, if not further. The main body consists of 

 chlorite and hornblende scliists, together with diabasic and horn- 

 blendic igneous rocks. Talcose schist and steatite also occur, and 

 towards the Tokwe River strongly foliated gneisses are found. The 

 general dip of the foliation is southerly, the strike being east and 

 west. Mr. Wybergh has favoured us with the following section 

 across the belt from Victoria to Zimbabwi, a distance of 15 miles. 

 First, a small band of chlorite and talc schists with beds of steatite 

 is crossed. Then follows a small bed of ironstone and quartzite, 

 succeeded by three miles of decomposed schists. Beyond this the 

 formation is described as sandy, massive beds of sandstone 

 occurring with seams of conglomerate (at Willougbby's Camp). 

 The district generally is hilly, in parts mountainous, and is on the 

 whole well covered with bush and well watered. 



Umtali lies south-east of Salisbury, from which it is distant about 

 140 miles by road. From Chimoio, the present railway terminus, 

 it is distant 55 miles, and from Beira 200 miles. The schists of 

 the auriferous belt have been traced from Mozambique westwards 

 to beyond the Odzi River, say 35 miles west of Umtali. The width 



