Prehnite was the first new mineral species to be described from South Africa. It was named after Col. Hendrik von Prehn (1733-85), a Dutch colonial living in Cape Town who collected the first specimens and brought them to Europe in 1774. Seventy years elapsed before South Africa produced another species--teschemacherite, described in 1846 and named after a British chemist. Further new mineral descriptions had to wait until South Africa's modern mining industry was established, beginning in the late nineteenth century with the discovery of gold and diamonds. Profiled here are two famous South Africans who have minerals named after them, one a geologist and mine discoverer, and the other a mine financier and empire builder.
HANS MERENSKY (1871-1952)
BRUCE CAIRNCROSS Department of Geology Rand Afrikaans University P.O. Box 524 Auckland Park, 2006 Gauteng, South Africa bc@na.rau.ac.za
Merenskyite, (Pd,Pt)[(Te,Bi).sub.2], is the palladium analog of melonite. It was originally discovered in the Merensky Reef of the Rustenburg Layered Suite, at the Rustenburg mine, near Rustenburg, North West Province, South Africa. It occurs as microscopic white grains intergrown with kotulskite in platiniferous ores (Daltry 1997).
Dr. Hans Merensky's name is synonymous with South African geology and mining (De Kock 1987), as he was intimately involved with the discovery and development of the huge platinum deposits in the Bushveld Complex, the diamond deposits of Namaqualand, and the Palabora carbonatite.
Merensky was born 16 March 1871 at Botshabelo ("place of refuge"), near Middelburg in Mpumalanga Province of South Africa. During his lifetime, he achieved fame and success as a geologist, mining engineer, explorationist, nature conservationist, and agriculturalist. He had three brothers and three sisters, but he never married. In 1882, when he was a youngster, his family moved to Germany, where he went to school and later studied to become a geologist, a junior mining engineer, and finally a Bergassessor (full-fledged
mining engineer). He also spent some time in the Prussian army.
In 1904 Merensky moved back to South Africa and set up practice as a geologist and mining engineer. He experienced mixed fortunes during this stage of his career, making money on mining ventures but then losing it all on the stock market (Lehmann 1955; Lehmann 1965; Klein 1971). Furthermore, after the First World War broke out in 1914, he was interned as a prisoner of war for five years in a concentration camp in Pietermaritzburg, KwaZulu-Natal, merely because he had previously served as an officer .in the Prussian army. By 1923 Merensky was in a desperate state, financially and psychologically. His situation changed beginning in 1924 when he was shown some alluvial platinum ore that had been collected in the Waterberg region, north of Pretoria (Wagner 1973). Subsequent investigations by Merensky revealed the source of the platinum ore in dunite pipes, and in September 1924, the famous Merensky Reef was discovered (Merensky 1925b). This was in fact first named the Lombaard Reef and later renamed the Merensky Reef in his honor (Cawthorn 1999). This economic deposit remains the largest platinum orebody in the world, striking continuously more than 300 kilometers through the Proterozoic Bushveld Complex. It is fitting that merenskyite should be a species from this deposit because it was Merensky's first major geological discovery. Although he made about 80,000 [pounds sterling] from this discovery, he used it all to repay his outstanding twelve-year-old debts. Later, in 1937, he also discovered and developed huge chrome deposits associated with the platinum ore at Wintersveld in the Bushveld. This asset he subsequently sold for 500,000 [pounds sterling] to Union Carbide Corporation. During this period of his career, Merensky received an honorary doctorate from the University of Berlin, the first of numerous scholastic awards.
Merensky's second claim to geological fame came in 1926, from the marine diamond deposits on the west coast of South Africa (Merensky 1925a). His astute observational powers and intuition enabled him to recognize that the diamonds were stratigraphically concentrated in an ancient oyster bed located in ancient wave-cut terraces. Even though there were hundreds of diggers in the region, they failed to recognize this fact. Merensky pegged claims along the strike of this geological formation, resulting in prodigious amounts of diamonds being produced. He soon sold his interests to the Oppenheimer-Barnato group for 1,103,750 [pounds sterling]! Finally, Merensky had money to invest. He purchased Wesphalia estate near Duiwelskloof in Mpumalanga and developed the land over the years with timber, fruit trees, and irrigation installations that he shared free of charge with his neighbors. He also invested in property in Germany.
In 1930 Merensky became the instigator in what would be the discovery of the largest gold deposit on Earth. Merensky gave an Ascania magnetometer to Dr. Rudolph Krahmann, a young German geophysicist. Krahmann used it to delineate the western extension/distribution of magnetic shales in the subsurface Witwatersrand rocks. These were known to underlie the gold-bearing reefs. Krahmann showed his results to Merensky, who referred him to Reinecke and Carleton Jones of the Gold Fields mining group. The result? The discovery and development of the West Wits Line that more than doubled the gold output of the already fabulously rich Witwatersrand goldfield. Yet even more geological fame awaited Merensky. In 1937 a friend told Merensky that he had heard of large deposits of vermiculite at Loolekop, close to the central western border of the Kruger National Park. Merensky explored and mapped the area, and it developed into what would be the largest-known deposit of vermiculite.
Approaching seventy, Merensky retired in 1939 to his farm at Wesphalia. When the Second World War broke out, he was again harassed and held captive on his farm (because of his Germanic origins). Only the intervention of Gen. Jan Smuts, a personal friend, saved Merensky from a second period of imprisonment--scant recognition by the South African government for someone who had already contributed so much to his country of birth!
Merensky's final geological achievement came primarily from his phenomenal memory. In 1946 he recalled seeing some interesting rock forty years previously at a vermiculite deposit. He sent his secretary, with specific directions, to collect samples to bring back to him. The rock turned out to be an apatite-bearing carbonatite. So, at age seventy-five, Merensky traveled east, set up his bush camp at Loolekop, and personally supervised an exploration and drilling program. Three years later, the enormous Palabora carbonatite was proven. (The Palabora Mining Company was subsequently founded in 1956, four years after Merensky's death, to exploit this multimetal phosphate deposit.) This discovery had profound financial implications for South Africa because it could now terminate its dependence on importing phosphate from Morocco.
Thereafter, Merensky finally fully retired to his farm, where he died peacefully on 21 October 1952; his ashes were scattered over the farm. Merensky had no dependents, so after his death, according to his will, the Hans Merensky Trust was established. This trust, now a foundation, still exists in Johannesburg and pursues the philanthropic ideals of Hans Merensky, assisting in the development and conservation of South Africa's natural resources and flora and fauna.
Dr. Percy Wagner, a contemporary and himself a legendary South African geologist, stated (1973) that Merensky had an almost superhuman ability and sixth sense where mineral prospects were concerned. Coupled with his unbridled energy and astute observational powers, Merenky's efforts produced some of the world's richest mineral deposits.
South African type-minerals named after southern Africans.
Mineral Year Composition Person
afwillite 1925 [Ca.sub.3] Alpheus Fuller
[Si.sub.2] Williams (b. 1874),
[O.sub.4] general manager
[(OH).sub.6] of De Beers
Consolidated Mines
and author of
several books on
diamonds.
clairite 1983 [(N[H.sub.4]).sub.2] Claire Martini,
([Fe.sup.3+], wife of Jacques
[Mn.sup.3+]).sub.3] E. J. Martini,
[(S[O.sub.4]).sub.4] who discovered and
[(OH).sub.3] described the
*3[H.sub.2]O mineral.
cooperite 1928 (Pt,Pd,Ni)S R. A. Cooper
(1890-1972), who
described the
first specimens
from the Bushveld
Complex.
geversite 1961 Pt[(Sb,Bi).sub.2] Traugott Wilhelm
Gevers (1900-91),
well-known
geologist and
academic.
hawthorneite 1989 Ba([Ti.sub.3] John Barry Hawthorne
[Cr.sub.4] (b. 1934), of
[Fe.sup.2+.sub.2]Mg) Anglo American
[O.sub.19] Corporation.
hennomartinite 1993 Sr[Mn.sup.3+.sub.2] Henno Martin
[Si.sub.2][O.sub.7] (b. 1910),
[(OH).sub.2] geologist
*[H.sub.2]O and academic.
kornite 1993 (Na,K)[Na.sub.2] Hermann Korn
([Mg.sub.2] (1910-1946),
[Mn.sup.3+.sub.2] geologist and
Li)Si[O.sub.22] friend of Henno
[(OH).sub.2] Martin.
mathiasite 1983 (K,Ca,Sr) Morna Mathias
[(Ti,Cr,Fe,Mg) (b. 1913),
.sub.21] geologist
[O.sub.38] and academic.
merenskyite 1966 (Pd,Pt) Hans Merensky
[(Te,Bi).sub.2] (1871-1952), South
African geologist,
philanthropist,
and entrepreneur,
who described the
Merensky Reef in
the Bushveld
Complex.
mountainite 1957 (Ca,[Na.sub.2], Edgar Donald Mountain
[K.sub.2]) (1901-85),
[Si.sub.4] geologist,
[O.sub.10]*3 academic, and
[H.sub.2]O author.
poldervaartite 1993 Ca([Ca.sub.0.5] Arie Poldervaart
[Mn.sup.2+.sub.0.5] (1918-64),
(Si[O.sub.3]OH)(OH) geologist and
academic.
prehnite 1788 [Ca.sub.2][Al.sub.2] Hendrik yon Prehn
[Si.sub.3][O.sub.10] (1733-85),
[(OH).sub.2] discoverer of
the mineral.
rhodesite 1956 KH[Ca.sub.2][Si.sub.8] Cecil John Rhodes
[O.sub.19]*5 (1853-1902),
[H.sub.2]O British colonialist
and founder of De
Beers.
trevorite 1921 Ni[Fe.sup.3+.sub.2] Tudor Gruffydd Trevor
[O.sub.4] (1865-1958),
inspector of mines.
vonbezingite 1992 [Ca.sub.6] Karl-Ludwig von
[Cu.sup.2+.sub.3] Bezing (b. 1945),
([SO.sub.4]) physician and
[(OH).sub.12] mineral collector.
*2[H.sub.2]O
willemseite 1968 [(Ni,Mg).sub.3] Johannes Willemse
[Si.sub.4][O.sub.10] (b. 1909),
[(OH).sub.2] geologist and
academic.
REFERENCES
Cawthorn, R. G. 1999. The discovery of the platiniferous Merensky Reef in 1924. South African Journal of Geology 3:178-83.
Daltry, V. C. C. 1997. Mineralogy of South Africa: Type-mineral species and type-mineral names. Pretoria: Council for Geoscience Geological Survey handbook 15.
De Kock, W. J. 1987. Dictionary of South African biography. Cape Town: Human Sciences Research Council, Tafelberg Publishers.
Klein, H. 1971. Hans Merensky 1871-1952. Johannesburg: Hans Merensky Trust.
Lehmann, O. 1955. Hans Merensky ein deutscher Pionier in Sudafrika. Gottingen: Verlag K. W. Schutz.
--. 1965. Look beyond the wind. Cape Town: Howard Timmins. Merensky, H. 1905. The gold deposits of the Murchison Range in the north-east Transvaal. Transactions of the Geological Society of South Africa 8:42-46.
--. 1925a. The discovery of the Namaqualand diamonds. In South African Mining & Engineering Journal yearbook, 185-91.
--. 1925b. The platinum areas of Lydenburg. In South African Mining & Engineering Journal, 474-76.
Wagner, P. A. 1973. The platinum deposits and mines of South Africa. 2d ed. Cape Town: Struik Publishers.
Dr. Bruce Cairncross, a consulting editor of Rocks & Minerals, is an associate professor of geology at Rand Afrikaans University in Johannesburg. His most recent article for Rocks & Minerals was titled "The Geological Museum, Johannesburg, South Africa" and appeared in the March/April 2001 issue.
CECIL JOHN RHODES (1853-1902)
PETER TARASSOFF 91 Lakeshore Road Beaconsfield, Quebec Canada H9W 4H8 ptarassoff@sprint.ca
Rhodesite, KH[Ca.sub.2][Si.sub.8][O.sub.9]*5[H.sub.2]O, was first described from the Bultfontein diamond mine in Kimberley, South Africa (Mountain 1957), where it occurs as matted, silky white fibers, forming rosettes to 2 mm, and is associated with bultfonteinite. The mineral has also been reported from Trinity County, California; Zeilberg, Germany; and San Venanzo, Italy.
Cecil John Rhodes was born in Bishop's Stortford, Hertfordshire, England, on 5 July 1853. In 1870, at the age of sixteen, he was sent, for reasons of health, to live with his brother in South Africa. After a brief stint at farming, Rhodes decided to try his luck in the newly discovered diamond fields of the Orange Free State. Here he successfully worked the claims that his brother had already secured on the diamond pipe that was to become the famous Kimberley mine. In 1873 he entered into what would be a pivotal partnership with Charles Rudd. With the proceeds of their diamond mining, and a lucrative contract to pump water out of the diamond workings in the area, the partners began buying up claims on the nearby De Beers diamond pipe. In 1880 they formed the De Beers Mining Company with the objective of gaining control of the deposit. Claims in the diamond fields were small, each about 10 square meters. This resulted in a warren of pits sunk on the diamond-bearing yellow ground. Cave-ins, flooding, and squabbles over claim boundaries were frequent. It was clear that it would be much more efficient and profitable to consolidate the separate diggings into one operation.
When Rhodes arrived in South Africa, he was determined to complete his education by entering Oxford University. Because of ill health and the time required to attend to business matters in South Africa, his attendance at Oxford spanned the years 1873 to 1881. When Rhodes finally received his degree, he was twenty-eight years old, already a wealthy and influential businessman and chairman of the De Beers Mining Company. He had also just been elected to the Cape Colony parliament, a seat he retained throughout his lifetime.
Rhodes has been called the epitome of the British imperialist. In 1877 he had written, "I contend that we [the British] are the first race in the world, and that the more of the world we inhabit, the better it is for the human race" (Marlowe 1972). Following his election to the Cape Colony parliament, Rhodes immersed himself in the complex politics of what is today the Republic of South Africa. As a parliamentarian he could promote, on one hand, his vision of a British Africa and, on the other, the more immediate vested interests of the mining industry.
By 1887 the De Beers Mining Company had gained full ownership of the De Beers diamond deposit. Rhodes then became convinced of the need to limit the production of diamonds in order to control prices and assure profits for the diamond mine owners. This meant being the dominant producer and/or creating a cartel. While De Beers was preoccupied with control of the De Beers mine, the Kimberley Central Company was similarly consolidating ownership of the much-larger Kimberley mine. With the financial backing of Lord Rothschild, Rhodes proceeded to acquire control of Kimberley Central. In 1888 De Beers and Kimberley Central were amalgamated into a new corporation called De Beers Consolidated Mines. With the additional acquisition of the Dutoitspan and Bultfontein mines, De Beers had secured control of 90 percent of the world's diamond production.
Two years earlier, the rich Witwatersrand gold deposits had been discovered in the Transvaal. After some initial hesitation, Rhodes and Rudd began acquiring gold properties on the west Rand and formed what later became Consolidated Gold Fields of South Africa, Ltd. By 1895 the company was Rhodes's largest source of income. His various holdings were bringing him an annual income of around 1 million [pounds sterling], a huge sum in the nineteenth century. Financially secure, Rhodes could now focus on realizing his vision of a British Africa.
Extending north through the center of the African continent were the British territories of Cape Colony, British Bechuanaland, and the Bechuanaland Protectorate (now Botswana). On their east were the Boer republics of Transvaal and the Orange Free State. Beyond lay Matabeleland and Mashonaland, controlled by the powerful Matabele tribe. These and other tribal lands to the north were already subject to German and Portuguese territorial ambitions. Rhodes determined to push for British expansion north. In 1888 he was instrumental in gaining British authority over Matabeleland and Mashonaland through the Moffat Treaty with the Matabele. He and his associates then persuaded the Matabele to give them exclusive rights to metals and minerals. Like other colonial powers, Britain was predisposed to grant private companies a monopoly over certain territories, in return for which the companies assumed financial responsibility for their development and colonization. In this way, the British South Africa Company established by Rhodes and his associates was given a monopoly over Matabeleland and Mashonaland in 1889. The monopoly was, however, only on paper. The problem was how to wrest effective possession of the land from the Matabele. Rhodes organized an armed expedition to first occupy Mashonaland, bypassing the Matabele stronghold around Bulawayo in the south. In September 1890 the expedition hoisted the Union Jack over what was later to become Salisbury, the capital of Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe).
At the time, Rhodes had said: "So long as the Matabele do not molest my people I cannot declare war on them and deprive them of their country; but as soon as they interfere with our rights, I shall certainly end their game" (Marlowe 1972). A pretext came in 1893, when the Matabele carried out a punitive raid on a Mashona tribe in the company's territory. An armed force was organized by the company and successfully conquered the Matabele. At a banquet in Cape Town celebrating his triumph, Rhodes declared: "I made the seizure of the interior the paramount thing in my politics and made everything else subordinate.... [We] have gone out and taken the north and we are rather proud of it" (Marlowe 1972). Paradoxically, while overseeing "the seizure of the interior" as head of the South Africa Company, Rhodes was also prime minister of the Cape Colony, having been invited to form its government in 1890. He saw no conflict in his two roles.
Beyond Mashonaland across the Zambezi River lay more territory to be "taken." Britain had already gained a foothold in Nyasaland (now Malawi) bordering Portuguese and German East Africa. With the approval of the British government, the British South Africa Company was given the go-ahead to make treaties with the various tribes north of the Zambezi River and to acquire territorial and mineral concessions. By 1895 Rhodes's company had assumed administrative responsibility for the vast territory that was later named Northern Rhodesia and is now Zambia.
That same year Rhodes became embroiled in the Jameson Raid. The Witwatersrand gold discoveries had brought a large influx of mostly English-speaking outsiders--or Uitlanders, as they were called--into the Transvaal. The Boers saw the Uitlanders as a threat to their independence and introduced various measures that the Uitlanders considered to be discriminatory. When their grievances were not addressed, they planned a coup. Rhodes had come to see the growing economic dominance of the Transvaal as an obstacle to a British-controlled South African federation centered on the Cape Colony, and he decided to back the coup. Arms were smuggled to the conspirators, and an armed force was raised in Bechuanaland to intervene in the uprising once it was under way. Commanding the force was Rhodes's administrator in Matabeleland and Mashonaland, L. S. Jameson. In the event, the uprising was postponed, but Jameson proceeded to march toward Johannesburg anyway. His column was quickly surrounded and forced to surrender to Boer forces. The British government immediately denounced the Jameson Raid. In the aftermath, Rhodes was compelled to resign as prime minister of the Cape Colony.
Among Rhodes's accomplishments as prime minister was the establishment of a Ministry of Agriculture. At his instigation, experts were brought in from California to advise farmers on growing and packing fruit for export, and phylloxera-resistant grape vines were introduced from California, bolstering the wine industry. However, his policies toward the natives marked the beginnings of apartheid.
Rhodes devoted much of the remainder of his life to the colonization and development of the vast holdings of the British South Africa Company. It was during this period that his name was formally attached to the company's territories. A constitution for Southern Rhodesia was promulgated by the British government in 1898, followed by a constitution for North-West Rhodesia in 1899. These provided for the company's continuing administration under the authority of the British government. Meanwhile, the British government had been putting pressure on the Transvaal to deal with the ongoing grievances of the Uitlanders. The Boer War broke out in October 1899, and Kimberley was soon under seige. As it happened, Rhodes was then in Kimberley, where he marshaled the resources of De Beers in the city's defense until the siege was broken in February 1900.
Although now in very poor health, Rhodes continued to attend to various political and business matters in Africa and in England and was constantly traveling. He died on 26 March 1902 at his seaside cottage just outside Cape Town. He was only forty-eight. In accordance with his wishes, he was buried in Bulawayo, Southern Rhodesia.
Rhodes's final and lasting legacy was the establishment of the Rhodes Scholarships tenable at his alma mater, Oxford University.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The photographs are courtesy of Malcolm Back of the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto, Canada. The coin is from the collection of Robert I. Gait, also of Toronto.
REFERENCES
Marlowe, J. 1972. Cecil Rhodes: The anatomy of an empire. London: Paul Elek Books.
Mountain, E. D. 1957. Rhodesite, a new mineral from the Bultfontein mine, Kimberley. Mineralogical Magazine 31:607-10.
Williams, G. F. 1902. The diamond mines of South Africa: Some account of their rise and development. New York: Macmillan Company.
Dr. Peter Tarassoff is a retired metallurgical engineer and longtime mineral collector. His most recent article for Rocks & Minerals was titled "Three McGill Men and Minerals from Mont Saint-Hilaire" and appeared in the July/August 2001 issue.