Page 12 - KBHA Bulletin 14

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no desire to this, but at last let myself be persuaded, since he assured me that it
was not a great distance to walk … the place being called the Steinberg. Early
th
in the morning of the 24 I set out, with the Mine-Foreman and miners who
had come from the Indies with me, and began the journey to the aforesaid
mine of the Cape … But it was not so close as he pretended, since before
th
reaching it we had marched from early morning to dark night … On the 25 I
examined the mine, finding besides the shaft a considerable quantity of ore
obtained from this, which was asserted to be copper ore but was in fact
nothing but a coarse iron-glance mixed with copper dust. It was not possible
to visit the shaft, since it had fallen in and also the crossbeams and shores,
together with most of the ladders in it were broken and crushed together. By
the side of the shaft I saw some remains of a smelting-furnace, in which the
Mine-Overseer Gabriel Möller … had smelted the ore, but obtained nothing
but cobalt-ore.

After I had examined this I went down the hill, where I was shown a tunnel
which according to the said Mine-Foreman had been driven for about 7
fathoms [c. 14 m] into sandstone. About 3 fathoms [c. 6 m] from its mouth
was a cleft, from which some ferruginous material had been got, but the same
had soon petered out and there was no more of it: also in front of that place
not the least sign of a lode could be traced. I should have liked to inspect the
shaft, but for the aforesaid reasons this was not possible, and I must content
myself with what I had seen.

I took a few hand-samples with me, and returned to the hut which had been
built by the miners working there; and passed the night there, since the
daylight was nearly past and it was therefore impossible to reach the Cabo
buon Esperanza … 9

In May 1994 at the request of the author a team of cavers belonging to the Cape Peninsula
Spelæological Society explored the vertical shaft which, as far as was known, had not been

done before. Having descended the shaft without incident using a steel rope ladder, it was
found that, not unexpectedly, it was partially flooded, with the water level being some 14 m

below the surface. However, to our great disappointment it was found that the water at the
bottom of the shaft was only some 2 m deep, below which was a thick layer of mud. (Fig.

1.4.) We had hoped to discover a much deeper shaft, off which there might even be various

horizontal drives, but sadly our hopes of discovering evidence of a substantial early
underground Cape mining operation were dashed!

It was significant, however, that the rocks immediately above the shaft contained a number of

narrow bands of manganese ore. These were black in colour, as is silver oxide, and in places

were shiny as a result of some geological process. One cannot help but wonder whether the