1870 Du Toits
Kloof Manganese Mine
Although
the Western Cape is not generally considered a mining area, over the centuries,
there have in fact been a remarkable number of mining ventures in the area. Thus,
at one time or another gold, silver, tin, manganese and tungsten mines have all
operated in the region – honestly or fraudulently! Amongst the most fascinating
of these mines have been those devoted to the extraction of manganese – and
none more than that in Du Toit’s Kloof.
However, in the early-1870’s a substantial
deposit of manganese ore was discovered in Du Toit’s Kloof above the point
where the Molenaars River joins Du Toit’s Kloof Stream, i.e., near the old
original road tunnel, up above to the right as you face Worcester direction. It
is not clear who the original discoverer was of the deposit, but we know that
by the mid-1870’s a substantial mining operation was underway on the site.
The ore that was exposed on the surface of the
mountain could be, and indeed was, mined directly. However, in order to extract
that portion of the orebody which was underground, the early miners drove a
horizontal tunnel, known as a drive or adit, into the hillside until it
intersected the orebody. The pieces of ore were then loaded underground into
small railway trucks, holding perhaps 200 to 300kg, and these were run by hand
along a gently sloping narrow-gauge railway track to the entrance of the adit.
Here the ore was sorted by hand with the pieces
containing the highest percentage of manganese readily recognizable as being
the densest and the darkest in colour. The poor-quality ore, which usually had
patches of brown due to the presence of iron, as well as other waste rock, was
dumped near the entrance to the adit.
The really daunting problem facing the miners at
the time, was how the ore was to be transported to the nearest railhead, which
was Wellington, many kilometres away, and from where it would be taken to Cape
Town for export overseas. The present road through Du Toit’s Kloof, building of
which commenced during the Second World War using Italian prisoners of war and
was only opened in March 1949, was of course then not in existence, and the
narrow cattle track which ran through the kloof would have been quite
inadequate for the wagons which would be required to move such large masses of
material.
It was
therefore decided to build a cableway – described at the time as ‘an aerial
wire tram’! – from the mine to a spot a few kilometres from Wellington, where
the ground was relatively level – a distance of some eight kilometres. The
terminus of the cableway is in the Daljosaphat Forest Reserve about 500 metres
from Hawequas. I found it some years ago after a fire, but now that the forest
has regenerated, it would take a fair hunt to find it again.
There were still some old bottles and pieces of
porcelain plates that could be found on the site. Engines at either end of the
support cable would pull buckets loaded with ore, from the mine along one of
the cables to this terminus near Wellington, while the empty buckets would
return along the other cable.
The
cableway was designed, manufactured, installed and apparently operated
successfully, although many of its technical details are still obscure. Given
the remoteness, ruggedness and extreme steepness of parts of the terrain which
had to be traversed, as well as the great
weight of the steel cables, the support towers
and the haulage machinery, as well as the lack of suitable roads along which
this great mass of material had to be hauled, this must without question rank
as one of the truly great South African engineering feats.
Sadly, it has and was never acknowledged as such
– or indeed in any way. Unfortunately as well, no photographic record of the
cableway appears to have survived, but the illustrations in a roughly
contemporary manual, C.G.Warnford Lock’s Practical Gold-Mining (London, 1889)
provides us with what is no doubt a reasonably clear idea of what the cableway
looked like.
Sometime
In the late-1870’s the mine closed down. The reasons are not known, but is
probably largely due to economics. Perhaps, like so many mines throughout the
world, it ran out of capital rather than ore, or perhaps the world price of
manganese fell to a point where mining was simply uneconomical? But the
situation was to change in a most unexpected way.
In 1882 Robert (later Sir Robert) Hadfield, an
eminent British metallurgist, made a remarkable discovery. Steel was tough but
not very hard, while cast iron was hard but brittle. Hadfield was therefore
searching for a material which possessed the toughness of steel with the
hardness of cast iron. Eventually he discovered that a manganese-iron alloy
possessed just those qualities – as well as being remarkably resistant to
abrasion
Hadfield's
discovery meant that throughout the world there was energetic prospecting for
new deposits of manganese, while old deposits and mines were re-examined with
fresh eyes. Clearly the abandoned Du Toit’s Kloof mine was one of these, for it
cannot simply be a coincidence that in 1883 we learn that, although the mine
had not yet actually resumed working, a new cable was being installed in the
cableway system.
The following year the mine is reported as
having been re-opened and was being worked by a private company, the ore being
described as ‘plentiful and rich’. Once again, we have no evidence as to how
long the mine operated and how much ore was actually transported to Wellington,
but there is evidence that by the turn of the century it was not followed
through.
Thus ended what is thus far the Western Cape’s
largest mining venture. Like so many other mines throughout the world, it
raised high the hopes of many people, absorbed a substantial amount of capital,
was conceived with technical boldness and vision, prosecuted with skill,
determination and courage by the miners themselves, but in the end failed due
to one – or perhaps both – of those two eternal enemies of mining ventures
everywhere: shortage of capital and insufficient reserves of payable ore.
Fraud has of course also played a prominent role
in the failure of numerous mining ventures, with exploration samples all too
often being ‘salted’ to increase their apparent value, but there is no evidence
that this was the case here.
Today all that remains of this bold venture are
the underground workings at the mine itself (which must be entered with extreme
caution due to a semi-collapsed portion about halfway along the adit where it
passes through a clay band), there are some very dangerous open excavations
above the entrance to the adit, a few of which are flooded, a number of piles
of ore, pieces of the original machinery for working the cableway, and a number
of rectangular stone structures which served as the foundations for the steel
towers carrying the steel ropes of the cableway.
As far as the route of the original cableway is
concerned, this can still be traced in many places by the pieces of manganese
ore lying on the ground – presumably spilled out of the containers moving
overhead. The stone foundations of the terminus of the cableway, not far from
Wellington and located as mentioned in the forest, has unfortunately been
damaged by forestry operations and is urgently needing restoration by a local
historical group. Failing this, then another visible piece of our history will
soon disappear. Of the company records there is, sadly, virtually no remnant.
Comment: Very scenic full day driving Tour,
including a moderate hike to the Manganese Mine. Maximum 2 participants or
bring own Vehicles if more participants.
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