The greatest gold rush since the Klondike was on last week. But most of the prospectors were the slick, sharp-eyed speculators of the London and Johannesburg stock exchanges. In the "kaffir circuses"—the usually cautious sections of the exchanges where South African gold stocks are traded—the market value of Orange Free State shares zoomed $100,000,000 in 48 hours.
The unprecedented boom grew beanstalk-fast from a 3,022-ft.-deep borehole in a cornfield near the dusty little village of Odendaalsrus, southwest of Johannesburg on the Free State's sandy veld. A Canadian engineer, G. W. Hicks, employed...
To continue reading:
or
Log-In
