To The Gold Coast for Gold: A Personal Narrative. Vol. IIBurton, Richard Francis, Sir
History
To The Gold Coast for Gold: A Personal Narrative. Vol. II
Burton, Richard Francis, Sir
Ghana -- Description and travel; Gold mines and mining -- Ghana
At Aji Bipa the lode runs N. 38º E. (Mag.) in the centre shaft, and N. 40
E. in the southern shaft, a sort of fault occurring in the centre shaft.
In the northern shaft I should put it at 38º, but from the way in which
the neighbouring rock had cleaved it was difficult to get the strike
accurately. The dip is the same in all three shafts, viz. 82º. The lode
being so near vertical, it can be clearly traced for the whole depth of
the shafts, and is very well defined. The hanging (eastern) wall is highly
coloured with iron oxides, and contains many quartz crystals which are
through-coloured with the same, and I do not think it at all unlikely that
garnets and other gems may be found in it. One or two minute crystals
showed a green colour, and might be tourmaline or emerald; but perhaps it
was only a surface-colour caused by the presence of copper. The foot wall
is very well marked by a strip of whitish yellow clay about an inch in
thickness. The rock on both sides of the lode is gold-bearing, and is
evidently, as well as the real lode, formed of the debris of old quartz
and granites. Talcose flakes are frequent, and in some places it seems to
be clearly gneiss. Although with a small plant it might not be profitable
to treat this, still with large and suitable machinery it may be made to
pay, and the trouble of separating the rich lode from the inferior stone
avoided. One remarkable trait in the lode is the manner in which it splits
into blocks and slabs, all the faces of the quartz pebbles being cloven in
precisely the same plane.
The length of the concession along the line of lode is 2,780 feet, and
from the way in which the lode stands on the western slope of the hill,
and the dip being eastward, I am of opinion that if a drift were put
through the hill other and parallel lodes would be found. Of course this
can only be proved by experience.
The thickness of the lode where I measured it varied from 22-1/2 to 25
inches in the southern shaft; and although I saw one pinch in the
northern, and the fault in the centre one, it can easily be traced and
worked, and should prove most profitable. In the centre shaft it is 24
inches, and in the northern 30 inches.
A curious sort of black substance occurs close to the line of clay which
defines the under side of the lode, and may be remnants of some vegetable
material; but with the means at my disposal I will not give any decided
opinion.
Over the rock which forms the main body of the hill lie the usual red clay
and oxidised quartz gravels, which, if treated by hydraulic mining, ought,
as it contains gold, to prove a paying stuff: moreover washing off the
surface-dirt would lay bare the rock and render all after-work easy and
simple.
The alluvials in the bottoms should here prove unusually rich, and means
might be adopted by which they should be raised mechanically and then
flumed down again.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account