Old Canvas Expeditions
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THE WITWATERSRAND GOLD FIELDS - AN AFRICAN EL DORADO

Slowly imperceptibly the rivers carry sand and pebbles southwards through a bleak and unforgiving world. Rain pours down on the bare rock, while lightning flickers around the high peaks and the ravines echo to the crash of boulders during the winter storms. Occasionally the specks of gold glint beneath the running waters when the sun comes out to shine on this hostile terrain. The rivers are heavy with sediment, carrying with them the debris of the aeons, rolling the pebbles in the deep, rounding and winnowing out the fine material. But the gold is not to be winnowed, being heavy and inert, and the fine grains roll along with the boulders. The rivers find their way to an inland sea, and the sediment load is dumped in the less turbulent waters of the basin, accumulating accumulating accumulating through the ages. Life exists only in the seas, and algal mats grow prolifically on the deltas as they advance out into the waters. And the specks of gold get caught in the fine structures of the algae – their journey arrested by slime and quiet waters.

Fifty thousand tonnes of gold have been extracted from the goldfields of the Witwatersand since the day that George Harrison tripped over the main reef in 1886. This comprises 31 percent of all the gold ever produced in the world and is a startling figure to say the least. One cannot help but indulge in the language of the superlative, but this is the richest and most prolific gold field in Earth history.

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THE WITWATERSRAND GOLD FIELDS - AN AFRICAN EL DORADO