he silver lodes of
Nevada have already been worked out and abandoned. There will then be no
further cause for the existence of the mine-workers at those points, and
the population will decline just as that of Nevada has declined. These
South African districts will, however, be in one point far better off
than Nevada: they possess land fit everywhere for ranching, and in many
places for tillage also. Ranching will, therefore, support a certain,
though not large, permanent population; while tillage, though the
profitable market close by will have been largely reduced by the
departure of the miners, will probably continue, because the land will
have been furnished with farmhouses and fences, perhaps in places with
irrigation works, and because the railways that will have been
constructed will enable agricultural products to reach more distant
markets, which by that time may possibly be less glutted with the
cereals of North and South America. Accordingly, assuming that a fair
proportion of the quartz reef gold-fields turn out well, it may be
predicted that population will increase in and round them during the
next ten years, and that for some twenty years more this population will
maintain itself, though of course not necessarily in the same spots,
because, as the reefs first developed become exhausted, the miners will
shift to new places. After these thirty or possibly forty years, that is
to say, before the middle of next century, the country, having parted
with whatever gold it contains, will have to fall back on its pasture
and its arable land; but having become settled and developed, it may
count on retaining a reasonable measure of prosperity.

This forecast may seem to be of a highly conjectural nature. Conjectural
it must be, if only for this reason: that the value of most of the
quartz reefs referred to is still quite uncertain. But one cannot visit
a new country without attempting to make a forecast of some kind; and
the experience of other countries goes to show that, while deposits of
the precious metals are, under our present conditions, no more an
abiding source of wealth than is a guano island, they may immensely
accelerate the development of a country, giving it a start in the world,
and providing it with advantages, such as railway communication, which
could not otherwise be looked for. This they are now doing for
Matabililand and Mashonaland, countries in which it would not at present
be worth while to co