GOLD. 



249 



vein of silver, most unfortunately, into a mass of 

 madrepore : the curious ' gangue ' was shown 

 to Lieutenant-Colonel Hamerton, and thus the 

 'cute experiment failed. The African interior 

 beyond the mountains is rich in copper and 

 iron. I have described the copper of the 

 Taganyika Lake Region : it is said to be col- 

 lected in small nuggets from torrent-beds, and 

 the bars have evidently been cast in sand. The 

 iron of the Umasai country makes the finest steel. 



Gold has undoubtedly been brought from the 

 mountains of Chaga; and the eastern plateau 

 promises to rival in auriferous wealth the Gold 

 Coast. The great fields north of and near the 

 Zambeze, and N. West of Natal, beyond the 

 Transvaal Republic, discovered in 1866-7 by the 

 German explorer, M. Mauch, a country consist- 

 ing of metamorphic rocks and auriferous quartz, 

 will probably be found extending high up in 

 East Africa throughout the rocks lying inland 

 of the maritime and sub-maritime corallines. 

 It is also likely that the vast coal-beds, ex- 

 plored by the Portuguese, and visited by Dr 

 Livingstone, in the vicinity of Tete on the Zam- 

 beze, and afterwards prolonged by him to the 

 Rufuma river, a formation quite unknown to 

 our popular works, will be extended to the Zan- 



