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Dr Hans Merensky CENTENARY of the DISCOVERER of the PLATINUM REEF

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Dr Hans Merensky CENTENARY of the DISCOVERER of the PLATINUM REEF Dr Hans Merensky CENTENARY OF THE DISCOVERER OF THE PLATINUM REEF “The remarkable development of the seven years later by another map that became platinum industry in the Transvaal is in no the standard work for many years. His small measure due to Dr Merensky’s children were taught by their father, and efforts-to his geological ability and sound especially were they trained in the observa- deductive reasoning, and to his untiring tion of their surroundings-birds, plants, efforts to solve the riddle of the deposits and animals and rocks. In later years, when to place our knowledge of the platiniferous Hans returned to the veld, he attributed his ore bodies upon a sound basis.” So wrote the exceptionally keen powers of observation to Mining and Industrial Magazine of Southern his father’s early training. Africa in its Special Platinum Number of In 1882 the Merensky family, now num- December 1925. It was in fact less than bering six children, left South Africa to eighteen months earlier that Hans Merensky return to Germany, and Hans and his elder had discovered platinum in the Lydenburg brother had their first-and unhappy- and Potgietersrust districts, and had thereby experience of boarding school. When the initiated a great industry. choice of a career became necessary, Hans The third child of Dr Alexander Merensky, felt he needed something that would kecp a Gcrman medical missionary who had been him outdoors, and while he thought first thrown out of their territories by several of forestry he quickly settled on geology- native chiefs in turn and had finally settled, a subject he had learned to appreciate from curiously enough, near Lydenburg, Hans was born in 1871 at his father’s mission station, Botshabelo, meaning “Refuge”. Alexander Merensky was an outstanding character: not only was he qualified in medicine and surgery, but he took a keen interest in the geography, geology and history of Africa, and together with Frederick Jeppe he had produced in 1865 the first map of the Transvaal, followed Hans Merensky 1871-1952 Born one hundred years ago, the son of a German missionary to the Transvaal, Merensky became a geologist of international reputation. His dis- covery ofplatinum in South Africa in 1924 was an epic of mineral exploration and led to the develop- ment of a great industry. Today Rustenburg Platinum Mines’ operations extend for some tmenty miles dong the Merensky reef. Platinum Metals Rev., 1971, 15, (3), 102-107 102 his father, and one that would keep him out however, when he could get back into open of doors all day long! But first he had to country with his horse, his tent and his undertake his military service, and it was a prospecting kit. further year before he could begin to prepare This highly successful period of his life for his career. was soon to come to an end, however. First The first part of his geology course com- a financial crisis in South Africa left him prised a year’s apprenticeship as an under- virtually bankrupt, and then, with the ground worker, and this period he spent beginning of the 1914war, he found himself in the coal mines of Silesia. The second interned-the fact that he was a reserve phase took him to the Technical High officer in the Germany Army overshadowed School at Breslau, and here he settled down to his South African birth. This five-year a period of hard study. This was followed confinement-quite intolerable to a man of by a course as Mine Supervisor in the Saar, Merensky’s nature-was shortly followed and finally by an eighteen months’ course by the post-war depression, and he found it at the University of Berlin. On one of his almost impossible to obtain commissions final field trips here he identified a deposit from the mining houses, none of which were before the professor in charge could do so proposing to expand their activities. himself. “I don’t know what it is about And then, in 1923, came news of the dis- Merensky”, said the professor, “but he covery of platinum in the Waterberg dis- seems to have a sixth sense about geological trict north of Nylstroom, and Hans Merensky, deposits.” who was in South West Africa on one of his Hans passed his final examinations with now rare missions, immediately rushed back honours, but he still had in front of him to Johannesburg. He found that, while the several more years of study and practical discovery was genuine enough, its exploita- work before he was offered a post in the tion was not commercially feasible. At Department of Mines in Silesia. Govern- the same time the news alerted every pros- ment service was not to his liking, however, pector in the area, and the hunt for platinum and he soon applied for a year’s leave to was on, but for Merensky there was only a study mining in South Africa. This was in return to his office and his creditors. 1904, but before his leave expired he made a It was in June of the following year, 1924, great decision-he resigned from the Depart- that a small aspirin bottle arrived in ment of Mines and wrote home to his father: Merensky’s mail. This contained a sample “I have decided to stay in South Africa. of greyish-white concentrate and came from There are too many opportunities here to Mr H. C. Dunne, whose brother-in-law, throw away on a safe, dull position in the Andries Lombaard, a farmer with some Government Service.” experience of panning for gold, had found Setting himself up as an independent what he thought was evidence of platinum consulting geologist and mining engineer, while panning in one of the streams on his Merensky quickly secured commissions from farm at Maandagshoek, about 45 miles north a number of mining finance houses in Johan- of Lydenburg. Analysis quickly confirmed nesburg, and in the course of his investi- the presence of platinum, as well as of rhodium gations contributed papers to the Geological and iridium, and very shortly Merensky Society of South Africa and to the Zeitschrift left for Maandagshoek. There he found fur praktische Geologie on the tin deposits Lombaard, assisted by two of his wife’s of the Transvaal, the gold occurrences in the cousins, Schalk and Willem Schoeman, Murchison Range, asbestos and coal in the following up his original find, and together Transvaal, and diamond deposits in several they examined a considerable stretch of parts of Southern Africa. He was happiest, country around the stream. Some streams- Platinum Metals Rev., 1971, 15, (3) 103 or spruits-showed traces of platinum, while total length extending to some sixty miles. other neighbouring streams proved negative, Merensky’s first thought was to christen it but Merensky was optimistic, believing “The Lombaard Reef”, but his colleagues that the alluvial platinum they were finding, overruled him, and it was thereupon named unlike the Waterberg deposit, originated in “The Merensky Rcef”. the surrounding basic rocks and that if he Finance was provided by a small syndicate, could locate the “mother rock”, as he called soon to become Lydenburg Platinum Limited, it, he would have found something far but this company later transferred its hold- bigger than the deposits of Russia and ings to a more substantial concern, Lydenburg Colombia upon which the world then Platinum Areas Limited, who began mining depended for its supplies of platinum. He and treatment operations. then left for Johannesburg to raise finance The news of the Lydenburg discovery at for further prospecting, and at the same time once precipitated a rush of prospectors, and decided to leave all other work for a few of course, a boom in the shares of the com- months in order to concentrate on the search panies owing land in the area, while Hans for platinum. On August 12th he arrived Merensky himself became, much to his dis- back at Maandagshoek, and within three pleasure, a public figure. In the midst of the days, assisted by Lombaard and the Schoeman excitement he disappeared for two weeks, brothers, had succeeded in establishing the returning to explain that he thought he had existence of platinum in the pyroxenitic and traced the reef at Potgietersrust and at ultra-basic rocks. Early in September Rustenburg. On his advice, his friend G. A. they had located the reef, running parallel Troye undertook prospecting operations in to the mountain range in a northerly direction, the Potgietersrust area and in early 1925 and by the end of the month had located it found payable quantities of platinum in the southwards across the Steelport River, the pyroxenite, stretching in an unbroken line Potgietersrust Platinum Mine in 1925, Dr Merensky, standing on the left, is explaining the features of the platinum deposit to a party of visitors, including the then Prime Minister, General Hertzog. Platinum Metals Rev., 1971, 15, (3) 104 The scene on one part of the Merensky Reef t0da.y. Zhe surfuce plant of Rustenburg Platinum Mines gives some indication of the great activity below ground. The shallower parts of the mines are worked from thirty inclined haulages, while the deeper areas are opened up from nine vertical shafts ranging in depth from 500 to 3,000 feet. for some thirty miles, and by July the out- Very soon the Waterval (Rustenburg) Plati- look was sufficiently promising for the for- num Mining Company was in operation. mation of Potgietersrust Platinum Mines (Many small mining concerns began life Limited. Similarly, Hans von Gernet, ad- at this time, but by 1930 only two mines vised by Merensky, together with W.
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