The Development of the South African Gold-Mining Industry, 1895-1918

Abstract

T he second half of nineteenth century was great era of gold discoveries. Between i849 and i898 a regular series of strikes was made in north America, Australasia, southern Africa, and Asiatic Russia. The gold rushes began in California in i849. Two years later attention focused on British colonies of New South Wales and Victoria in south-eastern Australia. In following two decades, Australasia continued to be main source of new gold, with discoveries in New Zealand in i86os and Queensland in i870s. In i88os, southern Africa became magnet for diggers: first in eastern Transvaal at Barberton, then on Witwatersrand in I 886. In final decade of century, it was north America and Australia once again which sustained gold frontier: in i893 the golden mile at Kalgoorlie in Western Australian desert threatened for a time to outbid even riches of South African Rand, whilst in frozen wastes of Klondyke and Alaska gold prospectors endured almost unimaginable hardships in what was to prove last of classic rushes.1 Less spectacular, but no less important, was steady development of Russian gold-mining industry throughout this period, spreading eastward from Ural mountains to Yenisei, Lena, and Amur rivers to cover much of Siberia.2 The economic consequences of these discoveries were dramatic. The increase in gold production paved way for a currency revolution of international dimensions. In i85I annual value of new gold output was $(US) 67m. By