Book Description

Excerpt from The South African Mining Journal and Engineering Record, Vol. 27: With Which Is Incorporated South African Mines, Commerce and Industries; Part II., July 27, 1918 With early primitive methods, only the gold most abun dant and easily worked and visible was first sought, and this was found principally in alluvial deposits, but as knowledge, mechanical skill and tools and appliances were developed by the human race gold mining was extended to more difficult alluvial, vein, and lode deposits. Gold, when it became the counter of trade and a measure of possession, was the most eagerly sought of all possessions, and thus it became the pioneer and stimulant in mining, metallurgy and chemistry. The search for this precious metal became so intense that the alchemists sought its transmutation from other metals, which, though they failed to accomplish, won them other knowled e and gave birth to chemistry. The trading value of gold Tins been stablished by history in that no super abundance was ever obtainable and it has always been necessary to expend labour and intelligence to an extent largely commensurate to the battering value of the gold obtained. Accurate records do not exist of the actual out puts of gold in early times. But certainly they must have been small from a modern standpoint. Great outputs of gold, as of all other minerals, are a matter of recent times. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.