Gold mining on the Rand, although beset…

Gold mining on the Rand, although beset by a number of technological problems in its early days, grows rapidly, with output increasing from £80,000 in 1887 to nearly £8,000,000, or one-fifth of the world's gold production, in 1895.

By the end of the century, more than £60,000,000 of capital has been invested in the gold industry, most of it by European investors, who thereby continue the pattern developed at Kimberley that southern Africa receives more foreign investment than the rest of Africa combined.

The gold mines employ one hundred thousand African laborers, five times as many as do the diamond mines, and draws these men from throughout southern Africa, although most come from Portuguese-ruled areas of Mozambique.

Johannesburg, the newly established hub of this industry, has a population of seventy-five thousand Europeans by the end of the century, which makes it the largest city in southern Africa.