It was not until 1884 that England heard of the presence of gold in South Africa. A man named Fred Stuben, who had spent several years in the country, spread such marvellous reports of the underground wealth of the Transvaal that only a short time elapsed before hundreds of prospectors and miners left England for South Africa. When the first prospectors discovered auriferous veins of wonderful quality on a farm called Sterkfontein, the gold boom had its birth. It required the lapse of only a short time for the news to reach Europe, America, and Australia, and immediately thereafter that vast and widely scattered army of men and women which constantly awaits the announcement of new discoveries of gold was set in motion toward the Randt. The Indian, Russian, American, and Australian gold fields were deserted, and the steamships and sailing vessels to South Africa were overladen with men and women of all degrees and nationalities. The journey to the Randt was expensive, dangerous, and comfortless, but before a year had passed almost twenty thousand persons had crossed the deserts and the plains and had settled on claims purchased from the Boers. In December, 1885, the first stamp mill was erected for the purpose of crushing the gneiss rock in which the gold lay hidden. This enterprise marks the real beginning of the gold fields of the Randt, which now yield one third of the world’s total product of the precious metal. The advent of thousands of foreigners was a boon to the Boers, who owned the large farms on which the auriferous veins were located. Options on farms that were of little value a short time before were sold at incredible figures, and the prices paid for small claims would have purchased farms of thousands of acres two years before. In July, 1886, the Government opened nine farms to the miners, and all have since become the best properties on the Randt. The names by which the farms were known were retained by the mines which were located upon them afterward, and, as they give an idea of the nomenclature of the country, are worth repetition: Langlaagte, Dreifontein, Rantjeslaagte, Doornfontein, Vogelstruitsfontein, Paardeplaats, Turffontein, Elandsfontein, and Roodepoort. The railroad from Cape Town extended only as far north as the diamond mines at Kimberley, and the remainder of the distance, about five hundred miles, had to be traversed with ox-teams or on foot; but the gold-seekers yielded to no impediments, and marched in bodies of hundreds to the new fields. The machinery necessary to operate the mines and extract the gold from the rocks, as well as every ounce of food and every inch of lumber, was dragged overland by ox-teams, and the vast plains that had seen naught but the herds of Boer farmers and the wandering tribes of natives were quickly transformed into scenes of unparalleled activity.