every mining engineer would consider an extremely conservative figure, the workable area would then comprise 40,200 claims, of which, basing a calculation upon the report made by the engineers of the Witwatersrand, and presented to Mr. Chamberlain at Johannesburg on January 13, 1903, only 4.279 per cent. have been exhausted up to the end of June, 1905, or in the sixteen and a half years during which mining operations have been actually carried on.
The geological conditions do not in any way indicate that the limit of the beds is confined to the proved sixty-one and a half miles, and besides the Witwatersrand, there are a great many districts in the Transvaal where profitable mining is carried on to some extent, and where vast bodies of gold-bearing ore are known to exist, of which the yield is not, however, sufficiently high to leave a profit under existing conditions. But, in addition to the known areas, it is only reasonable to expect that in so vast a territory as that which is known to be mineralized in South Africa further discoveries of value will be made.
The number of years during which mining and prospecting have been carried on, and the small population engaged, when compared with the enormous area, give some idea of the potentialities. Labour conditions, and the cost of commodities, have an immense bearing upon the future of South Africa. The gold reefs are more extensive than anything hitherto known, but the particles of valuable metal are somewhat widely distributed in the rock, and, in consequence, profitable results are dependent upon economic working. The system under which the operations are conducted differs entirely from that prevailing in countries where white labourers are exclusively employed. The presence of a large black population results in the whole of the manual labour, in which mere muscular energy counts, being performed by the inferior race, white men occupying positions as overseers and skilled artisans. In this respect South Africa is not, and never will be, a white man's country
