THE WITWATERSRAND AXD 
350 
rocks are of Paleozoic age, but carry no fossils. The conglom- 
erates of this group almost all contain more or less gold. The 
most famous mines of the Transvaal are o})ened ui>on a certain 
set of these conglomerate beds known as the Main Reef series. 
Resting unconformably on the Lower Cape is another grou]) 
known as the Upper Cai)e and containing one bed of conglom- 
erate, the Black Reef, which has been profitabl}’’ worked for gold 
at .some points. An extensive sheet of dolomite forms one mem- 
ber of the Up))er Cape. Unconformably on the Upper Cape lies 
the Triassic, carrying very extensive beds of coal, one of the 
treasures of the Transvaal of which little is heard outside of South 
Africa. As the country is also rich in iron ores, one ma}’’ expect 
to hear more in the future than in the ])ast of these coal fields. 
Meantime thei’ supply the gold-mining industiy with good and 
cheap fuel. The Lower Cape formation, with the Main Reef 
.series, is exposed onh' to a limited extent. M'ithin less than 20 
miles of Johannesburg, both to the east and west, the Upper 
Cape and the 'ITiassic beds Hood the country, and for a long dis- 
tance only an occasional glimpse is to be had of the Lower Cape 
with its auriferous conglomerate. It is said by various engineers 
to reai)pcar occasional!}’ for hundreds of miles from Johannes- 
burg — as, for instance, in Zululand — and to be more or le.ss aurif- 
erous wherever found. It need hardly be remarked that the 
search for the Main Reef lieneath the Trias is most arduous. That 
it will eventually be traced far beyond the surface exposures of 
the district is quite certain. 
In this paper the Witwatersrand district alone is of especial 
interest, but in conveying a general notion of the Transvaal it 
must be remarked that this is by no means the only auriferous 
district in the reiiublic. There are four other districts, contain- 
ing in all ten mines, which yield at the rate of over 8100,000 
each annually. Of these the Klerksdorp district carries gold in 
conglomerates. In the three other districts the gold is found in 
ordinary veins. The Sheba mine, in the De Kaap district, has 
yielded over 85,000,000. Four of the important mines lie in the 
Lydenburg district, and one, the Sutherland, in the Zoutpans- 
burg district. The total gold product of the Transvaal for 1895, 
outside of the Witwatersrand, was 83,581,000, while the Rand 
alone yielded 838,110,000.* Statistics show that the yield of the 
outside mines is increasing about as rapidly as that of the Rand. 
* For comparison it may be noted that the United States produced in 1895 $16,610,000 
worth of gold, or about $4,900,(XJO more than the Transvaal. 
