In an old (1876) edition of "Chambers's Encyclopædia," under the heading of "Africa--Productions," is the statement that "It would be hazardous to assert that Africa is deficient in _mineral wealth_, though, judging from our present imperfect knowledge, it does not seem to be extremely rich." Little did the compilers of this well-known work think that, in the space of less than twenty-five years, a town of about 150,000 inhabitants would spring up as the centre of a mining country which now takes rank as the first gold-producer in the world. The gold production of the Rand to date is indeed stated to equal one-ninth of the coined gold in circulation throughout the world, while its potential reserves are probably fourfold this amount. In 1887 the United States occupied first rank among gold-producing countries, Australia being second, and Russia third, the total gold production of the world being only £18,000,000. In 1898, South Africa occupied the premier position with 28 per cent. of the aggregate world's production, and her contribution, moreover, represented only 3-1/2 millions less than the world's aggregate in the first-named year. In 1899, owing to the war, it just managed to fall short of the headship. Since its start, the Rand gold-fields have produced gold to the handsome aggregate amount of £81,000,000 sterling. On the fortunes of South Africa, the influence exerted by this stupendous accretion to its wealth is past question, for the output of £20,000,000 of gold in 1898 formed 80 per cent. of the subcontinent's aggregate exports in that year, while 68 per cent. of it was disbursed in labour, foodstuffs, mining stores, and material in the course of its winning. It is only needful to glance back at the modest proportions of South Africa's trade movement before the discovery, first of diamonds and then of gold, to recognise how much it owes to its mineral wealth, and more particularly to that of gold, for its present-day prosperity. Its populations, its cities and ports, its railway network, its multifarious industries from agriculture upwards, and its merchant firms and commercial activity have each and all been stimulated and enlarged enormously by it. As in the case of Australia and other older gold-producing countries, the output of gold, primarily from the Witwatersrand fields, has acted like a perennial stream, fructifying and rendering teemful the arid wastes, and making the very wilderness to blossom as the rose. The gold-bearing quartz-pebble conglomerate beds, called by the Boers "banket"--the discovery of gold in the outcrops of which in 1883 started the Witwatersrand mining industry--form a series of strata going down at an angle of about 30 degrees to hitherto unknown depths--over 8000 feet have already been plumbed--and extending over a tested lateral distance of more than 50 miles. [Illustration: CYANIDE WORKS (NEW COMET MINE) AT JOHANNESBURG