Page 28 - Bulletin 14 2010

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publication South Africa (“A Weekly Journal for all Interested in South African Affairs”)
reported in an anonymous article headed ‘The Cape’s Metalliferous Wealth’ that:

“… manganese, which is common in the mountains of the Cape Peninsula,
had until recently failed to prove a payable proposition, the cost of labour and
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difficulty of haulage being obstacles to enterprise in this respect.
At Hout Bay, however, the difficulty has been solved, and a manganese
mine is actually at work. Manganese ore is being shipped from the Cape to
Belgium, where it has been favourably reported on.
As regards the manganese mine at Hout Bay, a shute, erected on poles,
extends from top to bottom of the mountain, a distance of some 2000 to 2500
feet. [c. 600 to 750 m] Down the shute, at an angle of something like 45
degrees, the manganese ore comes tumbling to the sea shore.
At the mountain base a jetty is being built, so that lighters may come
alongside, fill up, and discharge their cargo into the ships waiting in the Bay.
Some weeks ago a dozen or so White men were already busily drilling the
summit of the mountain, while manganese ore stood stacked in patches near,
like stacks of coal on a wharf awaiting shipment.” 37

The shute was by any standards a most extraordinary structure. As described above, it was

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constructed of wooden poles – 16,000 in number according to one account – and dropped in
a sharp decline several hundred metres from the mine to the edge of the sea. Presumably in

order to reduce the speed of the pieces of ore sliding down the steeply inclined shute it curved

away and then back towards the jetty. The shute was lined by corrugated iron sheets and,
apart from being open at the top for ore to be loaded, there was at least one loading station

someway down the shute.

The shute ended a short distance from the edge of the sea, where a stone and concrete jetty
was constructed using material purchased from the engineering firm of Sir John Jackson Ltd.

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in Simon’s Town. From the bottom of the shute a short cocopan line transported the ore
onto and along to the end of the jetty, where the ore was tipped into flat-bottomed lighters.
These then conveyed the ore to a ship anchored in deep water not far from the shore. The ore

was not processed further at the Cape but shipped to Europe where it would have been used
either in the production of chlorine or as an alloying element with iron. (Figs. 1.13 - 1.16.)

As the manganese ore occurred in a relatively narrow vein running vertically up the side of

the mountain a set of eight adits (i.e. horizontal tunnels) were driven into the side of the hill.

(Figs. 1.17 - 1.19.) These varied from about 20 to 85 metres in length and up to a few metres