The following table, based on Mr. H. Smith's and Dr. Soetbeer's estimates, affords us an opportunity for comparing the South African output with that of other countries, and the world's present supply with that of former years:-- GOLD OUTPUT FOR 1894. | WORLD'S OUTPUT. ------------------------------------------------------------------ | Average annual Value | From value. United States L9,000,000 | 1700 to 1859 L 2,000,000 Australasia 8,000,000 | 1850 to 1875 25,000,000 South Africa 7,000,000 | 1875 to 1890 20,000,000 Russia (1892) 4,000,000 | 1894 (one year only) 36,000,000 Of the stimulus given to railway construction by the establishment of the gold industry Mr. Worsfold speaks with authority. He says, "To-day, Johannesburg--built on land which in 1886 was part of an absolutely barren waste--is approached by three distinct lines, which connect it directly with the four chief ports of South Africa--Delagoa Bay, Durban, Port Elizabeth, and Cape Town. Of these lines the earliest, which traverses the Free State from end to end, and links the Randt with the Cape Colony, was not opened until July 1892. The Pretoria-Delagoa Bay line was completed in the autumn of 1894; and the extension of the Randt railway to Charlestown, the connecting-point with the Natal line, was not effected until the following year. These, together with some subsidiary lines, represent a total of 1000 miles of railway constructed mainly under the stimulus of the gold industry in the Transvaal. To this total two considerable pieces of railway construction, accomplished in the interest of the gold industry in the Chartered Company's territories, must be added. Of these, the first extended the main trunk line of Africa from Kimberley successively to Vryburg and Mafeking, in 1890 and 1894, and then finally to Buluwayo in 1897, and the second, the Beira line, by securing a rapid passage through the 'fly country,' brought Salisbury into easy communication with the East Coast of Africa at the port so named. Taken together, they measure 930 miles. It should be added also that arrangements are already in progress for the extension of the trunk line from Buluwayo to Tanganyika--a distance of about 750 miles. This will form a new and important link in Mr. Rhodes' great scheme of connecting Cape Town with Cairo."