Page:South Africa (1878 Volume 2).djvu/341

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.

all of which failed. The existing Company, which has been as a whole exceedingly prosperous, has made many trials at other spots none of which according to their own report have been altogether successful. I quote the following extracts from the report made by its own officers and published by the Company in 1877. "The operations at Spectakel Mine have been attended with almost unvarying ill fortune." "It is thought that the Kilduncan centre has had fair trial and as the ground looks unpromising the miners have been withdrawn." "Although yielding quantities of low class ore the workings at Narrap have not so far proved remunerative." "The levels at Karolusberg have also failed to reveal anything valuable." "A good deal of preparatory work has been done at this place,"—Nabapeep. "This may be regarded as the most promising trial mine belonging to the Company." These are all the adventures yet made except that of the Ookiep mine, but that alone has been so lucky that the yield in 1876 amounted to "10,765 tons of 21 cwt., nett dry weight, averaging 28-1/2 per cent." This perhaps, to the uninitiated mind may give but a hazy idea of the real result of the speculation. But when we are told that only £7 a share has been paid up, and that £4 per annum profit has been paid on each share, in spite of the failure of other adventures, then the success of the great Ookiep mine looms clear to the most uninstructed understanding.

There can be no doubt but that Namaqualand will prove to be one of the great copper producing countries of the earth; and as little, I fear, that it is in all other respects one