The sum of the foregoing observations is that the future of the Transvaal mining industry presents a vista of incalculable prosperity. In the restricted area of the Central Rand alone there is a treasure of at least £2,871,000,000 awaiting appropriation; and, beyond this huge sum, there are reserves in the Greater Rand which, reckoned on the basis of mileage alone, would sixfold this amount. Moreover, as the confines of the Rand reef formation have not yet been determined, should they be found to stretch into Natal and Zululand on the one hand, or into Rhodesia on the other, as recent discoveries would seem to indicate, the productive possibilities of the future are enlarged proportionately. Apart from its banket reefs the Transvaal likewise possesses huge gold reserves in its quartz reef fields in the De Kaap, Lydenburg, Zoutpansberg, and other districts to the south-east, east, and north, not to speak of the already opened and promising grounds on the extreme west, which await development when the Rand conglomerate beds are exhausted, if they do not--as in all probability they will--receive attention beforehand. The value of these resources is attested by the best of all evidence--that of actual productive yield in the past. In the matter of circumstances, means, and paying results from mining, it has been shown, and it is incontestible, that the industry now stands, in every particular, upon a much more advantageous basis than it ever enjoyed. As regards processes and mechanical appliances, the new era opens with the substantial asset in hand represented by the accumulated skill and knowledge of past painful and costly experience and experiment, so that new mines making a start may lay down their equipments with the greatest practical certainty and economy and assurance of successful results, even on low-grade properties previously deemed unremunerative. In respect of external circumstances, the conditions are already so improved, or in course of improvement, that working costs have been--and will be more so in the future, when all the beneficent proposals contemplated by the Government, and the local advantages resulting from the new order of things have had time to come into operation--lessened to the extent of yielding substantial accretions to the dividends of the already paying mines, while facilitating the development of the deeper mines, and the multitude of minor low-grade concerns hitherto incapable of profitable working. Estimates have been adventured in the earlier part of this chapter of the amount of the saving of working costs to the extent of 10s. per ton, but this is a pure approximation, and the actual outcome is likely to be twofold or more. Similarly the yield of gold per year from the Rand central district of 37 to 40 millions is only a rough estimate, the production in the future, as in the past, being likely to be much above the forecasts, taking into view the beneficent circumstances which will