Page 17 - Bulletin 14 2010

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Secretary of the company was Mr. J. S. Le Sueur and its offices were at 14 Keerom Street,
Cape Town. 19

The price of the company’s shares rose rapidly and by 29 April sellers were asking 80s – an

extraordinary rise in such a short period. They continued to be actively traded, maintaining a

price of about 50s until October, when their price began to decline. In November the Cape
Argus announced that the share registers of the company would be closed for a fortnight “for

purposes connected with applications for shares in the Prospect Hill Tin Prospecting and
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Developing Syndicate Limited.” This latter company was incorporated in October 1911 with
a nominal share capital of £16,000 and several directors in common with the Vredehoek Tin
Developing Syndicate. The nature of the relationship between the two companies is still not

completely clear, but it would appear that the Prospect Hill company owned a piece of land

adjoining that on which the Vredehoek Syndicate was mining. However, there is no evidence
that any actual mining operations took place on this land and it would appear that the two

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companies entered into some form of service agreement.

Development of the mine was now rapid and by January 1912 the Cape Argus reported that a

vertical shaft 180 ft. [55 m] in depth had already been sunk into “a highly mineralized zone”
(the mineral being cassiterite, the principal oxide of tin), and that a five-stamp crushing

battery had been erected at the mine. This stamp battery, which had five 1050 lb. [475 kg]
stamps, as well as various other pieces of machinery, was operated by a 50 horsepower

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suction gas engine. As it is always simpler – and of course much cheaper – to tram ore out
of a mine along a horizontal, or preferably gently sloping, adit rather than hoisting it up a
vertical shaft against gravity, an adit some 120 m in length was driven from the base of the

vertical shaft until it emerged from the side of the hill some distance above the stream that
flowed down the valley immediately adjoining the mine. The ore was transported along the

adit in steel cocopans running on a 2 ft. [60 cm] track. (Figs. 1.6 – 1.9.)

From the mouth of the adit (now unfortunately almost completely closed as a result of

subsidence of the ground surrounding it) the ore was fed by gravity to the crushing and
concentrating plant immediately below, the foundations and holding-down bolts of which are

still clearly visible. The ore was concentrated as follows. After crushing in the stamp mill in