Gold In South Africa Research Articles

The Origin of Gold in South Africa

The Origin of Gold in South Africa

Mary Elizabeth Barber, some early South African geologists and the discoveries of gold*

Mary Elizabeth Barber was the eldest daughter of Miles Bowker, a British gentleman sheep-farmer who arrived in South Africa with the 1820 Settler movement. She became a well-known artist, poet and natural historian, corresponding with several leading British scientists such as Sir Joseph Hooker and Charles Darwin. Her scientific papers were published by the Linnean Society of London, the Entomological Society of London, and the South African Philosophical Society. The story of the exploration of the geological resources of South Africa can be followed in the letters of this somewhat unusual lady whose life spanned virtually the whole of the nineteenth century. Although her major contributions to science were in the fields of botany and entomology, she lived through and recorded the events with which she and her family were intimately involved. She was closely connected with the discovery of diamonds and gold in South Africa and knew or was related to, many of the chief characters involved. During a long and eventful life she saw the evolution of South Africa from a mainly farming economy to that of a mineral rich industrial country.

Mary Elizabeth Barber: South Africa's first lady natural historian

An account of the life of a nineteenth century South African frontiers-woman who, without any formal education, made a name for herself as a plant collector and natural historian. Born in England, she emigrated as a child of 2 years of age with her family as one of the British settlers to the Grahamstown area in 1820. From the age of 20 she corresponded with several eminent English biologists, and had scientific papers on botany and entomology published in a number of journals. She was later involved in the early discoveries of diamonds and gold in South Africa. One of her sons was amongst the first to see and paint the Victoria Falls after their discovery by Livingstone. With her younger brother James Henry Bowker she collected and sent back a large number of plants, many of them previously unknown, to the herbarium of Trinity College, Dublin, and the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. She collaborated with her older brother Thomas Holden Bowker in building up one of the earliest collections of stone-age implements in South Africa, some of which are now in the British Museum.

South African monetary policies during the 1970s

The 1970s have been described as 'years of frustration' where monetary policies were concerned. The situation that had emerged in the previous decade was carried over into the 1970s. Inflation established itself firmly in the 10 to 20 per cent range, and the natural development of financial markets was suppressed by the resort to direct controls over banks and other financial institutions. Moreover, the Reserve Bank faced a challenging task in marketing South Africa's gold production during this period in a significantly changing global environment. The gold marketing policy of the Reserve Bank exerted an influence on the free market price of gold during the 1970s, and monetary policies to some extent were geared to improving the flexibility of the bank on the gold sales front.

Tribal recreation and recreating tribalism: culture, leisure and social control on South Africa's gold mines, 1940–1950

This paper is about the links between culture, leisure and social control on South Africa's gold mines. Based on a series of reports commissioned by the Chamber of Mines in the 1940s, it explores attempts by the industry to retribalise migrant workers using sport and leisure and thus forms one chapter in the broader attempts by the state and capital to shape the culture of Africans in twentieth century South Africa. The paper also makes a contribution to an under‐researched area of inquiry: the relationship between culture, social control and sport in urban South Africa. The first section of this paper sets the scene of recreation on the mines by examining the early efforts of WNLA and a few mines in recreation. The second section explores the emergence of a new phase in the Chamber of Mines’ policy on sport and leisure following the Lansdown Commission and the 1946 strike. In the final section of the paper, a series of reports which were produced in the aftermath of the 1946 strike are considered. Here, we focus on the way in which these reports reflected the links between culture and social control in the gold mining industry's cultural strategy of controlling and ‘retribalising’ migrant workers.

Mines and Labour Migrants in Southern Africa

Jonathan Crush, Alan Jeeves and David Yudelman, South Africa's Labor Empire: A History of Black Migrancy to the Gold Mines (Westview Press: David Philip, Boulder: Cape Town, 1991), xvi+266 pp.Patrick Harries, Work, Culture, and Identity: Migrant Laborers in Mozambique and South Africa, c.1860–1910 (Heinemann: Witwatersrand University Press: James Curry, Portsmouth: Johannesburg: London: 1994), xxiii+305 pp.T. Dunbar Moodie (with Vivienne Ndatshe), Going for Gold: Men, Mines and Migration (University of California Press, Berkeley, 1994), xxi+337 pp.Wilmot G. James, Our Precious Metal: African Labour in South Africa's Gold Industry, 1970–1990 (David Philip: Indiana University Press: James Currey, Cape Town: Bloomington: London, 1992), ix+188 pp.

Reviews and Short Notices

Reviews and Short Notices

Our Precious Metal: African Labour in South Africa's Gold Industry, 1970-1990

Our Precious Metal: African Labour in South Africa's Gold Industry, 1970-1990

Our Precious Metal: African Labour in South Africa's Gold Industry, 1970-1990

Part I - organizing a labour supply: migrant labour and inter-state relations a buyer's market - labour recruiting in the homelands urban labour and mine housing. Part II - the ascendancy of African workers: when African workers become unionized compounds as contested institutions the struggle over the colour bar.

Our Precious Metal: African Labour in South Africa's Gold Industry, 1970- 1990.

Our Precious Metal: African Labour in South Africa's Gold Industry, 1970- 1990.

Trade union support following an underground explosion

AbstractWe examined emotional support offered by a trade union and psychological distress four months after an underground explosion in a South Africa gold mine, which caused 63 fatalities and five injuries. The disaster occurred the day after the end of a three‐week, industry‐wide strike by the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM). Statistically controlling for industrial relations stress, no psychological distress differences were recorded between the experimental group (21 NUM members who were underground at the time of the blast) and a control group of 22 NUM members employed at a different gold mine in the region. Union emotional support interacted with exposure to the disaster: Whereas union support was significantly and inversely related to psychological distress for the experimental group, the relationship was non‐significant for the control group. Results are discussed in terms of the importance of trade unions as a source of social support.

Reviews

The World Development Report 1992. World Bank, Oxford University Press, New York, 1992. xii plus 308pp. including tables, graphs, notes, bibliography, index, and statistical appendices. Some Fell on Good Ground. An Account of the Queenstown Early Learning Centre by Michael Whisson. Occasional Paper 33, Institute of Social and Economic Research, Rhodes University, Grahamstown 1992. 97pp. R33. Paperback. Foreign Military Intervention in Africa by Keith Somerville. Pinter Publishers, London and St. Martin's Press, New York, 1990. x plus 205pp. including maps, bibliography and index. Shots in the Streets: Violence and Religion in South Africa by David Chidester. Oxford University Press, 1991. 199pp. Index. South African Human Rights and Labour Law Yearbook edited by Michael Robertson, assisted by Chris Albertyn and Megan Seneque. Oxford University Press, Cape Town/Centre for Socio‐Legal Studies, Durban, 1990. vii plus 472pp. including appendices and index. Paperback. Coups and Army Rule in Africa: Motivations and Constraints by Samuel Decalo. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2nd Edition, 1990. xvii plus 366pp. Swaziland's International Relations and Foreign Policy: A Study of a Small African State in International Relations by Paul‐Henri Bischoff. Peter Lang Publishers, Bern, Frankfurt‐am‐Main, New York, Paris, 1990. v plus 548 pp. including tables and bibliography. Our Precious Metal: African Labour in South Africa's Gold Industry, 1970–1990 by Wilmot B. James. David Philip, Cape Town, 1992. ix plus 188pp. including maps, graphs, bibliography and index. Paperback. South Africa's Labour Empire: A History of Black Migrancy to the Gold Mines by Jonathan Crush, Alan Jeeves and David Yudelman. David Philip, Cape Town, 1991. xvi plus 266pp. including maps, tables, graphs, statistical appendix, bibliography and index. Paperback. South Africa's Foreign Relations in Transition 1985–1992: A Chronology compiled by Elna Schoeman, assisted by Chris Schoeman. South African Institute of International Affairs, Bibliographical Series no 24. Johannesburg, 1992. iii plus 666pp.

Book reviews

Women of Phokeng: Consciousness, Life Strategy, and Migrancy in South Africa 1900 ‐1983 by Belinda Bozzoli, with the assistance of Mmantho Nkotsoe, Johannesburg, Ravan Press, 1991. Our Precious Metal: African Labour in South Africa's Gold Industry, 1970–1990 by Wilmot G. James, David Philip, James Currey & Indiana University Press, Cape Town, London & Bloomington,1992. Bounds of Possibility ‐ The Legacy of Steve Biko & Black Consciousness by N.B. Pityana, M. Ramphele, M. Mpumlwana, & L. Wilson, (eds), Cape Town, David Philip, 1991. Faces in the revolution: the psychological effects of violence on township youth in South Africa by Gill Straker, with Fathima Moosa, Rise Becker and Madiyoyo Nkwale. Cape Town, David Philip, 1992 and Athens, Ohio, Ohio University Press, 1992. Lives of Courage: Women for a New South Africa by Diana E.H.Russell. New York, Basic Books, 1989. Towards Justice? Crime and State Control in South Africa by Desiree Hansson and Dirk van Zyl Smit (eds), Cape Town, Oxford University Press, 1990. South Africa in the Nineties by DJ van Vuuren, NE Wiehahn, NJ Rhoodie en M Wiechers (eds), HSRC Publishers, 1991. To Live in Fear: Witchburning and Medicine Murder in Venda by A de V. Minnar, D Offringa and C Payze, HSRC, Pretoria, 1992. The Anti‐Politics Machine: ‘Development’, Depoliticization and Bureaucratic Power by James Ferguson, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1990. Zimbabwe's Guerrilla War: Peasant Voices by Norma J. Kriger. Cambridge University Press, African Studies Series, number 70,1992. A Passage to England ‐ Barbadian Londoners speak of home by John Western. U.C.L. Press, London, 1992. Breaking the formal frame: Readings in South African education in the eighties by Clive Millar, Sarah‐Anne Raynham and Angela Schaffer (eds). Cape Town: Oxford University Press, 1991. Negotiation : Theories, Strategies and Skills by Wynand Pienaar and Manie Spoelstra, Kenwyn, Juta, 1991 SUM: Selected Works by Martin Versveld. Cape Town: Carrefour Press 1991. Projections in the Past Tense, by Kelwyn Sole. Ravan Press, 1992.

Our precious metal: African labour in South Africa's gold industry, 1970-1990

Our precious metal: African labour in South Africa's gold industry, 1970-1990

War and gold— the bank of England, the London gold market and South Africa's gold, 1914–19

The Witwatersrand gold discoveries of 1886 coincided with the transition of the world to a global monetary system based on the gold standard. The significance of South Africa's incorporation into this international monetary system as the principal supplier of its newly‐mined gold has however been relatively unexplored. Based largely on Bank of England archival sources, this article attempts to show the impact that the Transvaal discoveries had on the relationship that developed between South Africa and Great Britain, which stood at the centre of the working of the international gold standard. It deals with this relationship during the First World War, and highlights the crucial importance that was attached to controlling the supply of gold from South Africa to safeguard Britain's standing in the world economy. The article also examines the tensions that arose between South Africa and Britain over the terms of the agreement that was made for the disposal of South Africa's gold during the war, and discloses the mounting pressures that the British authorities came under to change this arrangement once hostilities had ended.

Time variations of dust concentration and elemental composition in a gold mine

Dust samples were collected over a period of several weeks on a continuously moving strip of membrane filter (Florida State University streaker sampler type) in the return airway of an underground gold mine. The filters were then analysed stepwise by particle-induced X-ray emission (PIXE), yielding elemental concentrations in the dust at 2 h intervals. Elements measured include Al, Si, S, Cl, K, Ca, Ti, Mn, Fe, Cu, Zn and Pb. Time sequence and average diurnal plots of elemental concentrations are presented. Results of multi-variate factor analysis provide insight into the source processes and materials. The possible sources of the Cl, Pb, Ca and Zn components in the dust are discussed, as is the relevance of these results to the proposed introduction of a gravimetric dust standard for South Africa gold mines. The results are presented to show how the quartz content of airborne dust may be estimated using energy-dispersive X-ray elemental measurements of Si, Al and K.

The Feasibility of On-Stream X-Ray Fluorescence Analysis for Precious Metals

On-stream X-ray fluorescence analysis as applied in extractive metallurgy has seen a continual refinement in analytical techniques and an improvement in detection limits. Consequently the levels of measurement in base metal processes have improved from tenths of a percent to below 0, 01%. This has become important to the precious metal industry (platinum and gold in South Africa) because the analysis of some streams now becomes a realistic possibility. The measurement of concentrates and feed can be undertaken with fairly conventional equipment. It is in the measurement ot tailinqs (0,5 ppm) that the challenge lies. Improvement in detection limits can be made by increasing the signal to background ratio. This can be attempted through different combinations of X-ray excitation, dispersion and detection and sample presentation. The excitation of K X-ray lines, instead of the conventional L lines, with appropriate detection systems, and the requirements for process sample presentation are considered.

Backfill in South Africa: Developments to classification systems for plant residues

Over the past decade there has been a renewed interest in backfill in South Africa's gold mines. This paper notes the critical parameters for specification of a fill medium and provides guidelines for the design of a classification plant to produce acceptable fills from plant residues. It also touches on possible future developments to this technology.

Municipal Transformation in Soweto: Race, Politics, and Maladministration in Black Johannesburg

The growth of Johannesburg is synonymous with that of South Africa's gold mining industry and the expansion of the metropolitan area from a ramshackle collection of huts to one of the continent's major urban concentrations attests to the impact of visions quickly accumulated wealth on patterns of human movement. This is particularly true of the city's early white community, the prospectors and later the purveyors of capital and mining technology, to whom the imminent possibility of riches compensated for the rigors of existence on the geographically featureless Witwatersrand. Yet similar imaginings of affluence also partially explain the historic drift of blacks to “N'goli” (the city of gold) where today they constitute the overwhelming majority of its population. The opening of the gold reefs in 1884 brought unprecedented wealth to white South Africa (if not to the legions of black labor responsible for the precious metal's extraction). At the same time the discovery of gold set in motion the process of black urbanization of which Johannesburg is the epitome. By 1896 approximately half of the fledgling town's population were blacks seeking refuge in mine wage labor from growing poverty in the country areas and by 1913, with rural dispossesion aggravated by the Natives Land Act, an irreversible momentum was set in motion. Twelve years after the striking of the first successful claims Johannesburg's population of 102,000 was roughly divided between black and white (Lewis, 1966: 3). A mere 80 years later, despite the barriers to black urban influx institutionalized by successive white governments, the racial distribution of population was of the order of 3 to 1 with blacks the predominant element of the ratio.

Tariffs and Gold in South Africa, 1886–1939

Tariffs and Gold in South Africa, 1886–1939