Progressive
colonists developed the outcrops in the Stormberg district, and in the
face of grave discouragements opened seams of importance in the Molteno
and Cyphergat mines, but it was impracticable to work these mines with
any prospect of profit until railway communication was opened from
Stormberg Junction via Steynsburg to Middelburg, connecting the East
London and the Midland or Port Elizabeth lines. The possibility of
supply from this district was immediately grasped by De Beers Company,
both for the sake of an eventual saving in the cost of its fuel, and
the public-spirited object of cooperating, so far as was feasible, in
the development of a resource of such importance to the colonies.
The
Stormberg coal was so mixed with shale that even the shipping coal
after sorting held about one-third waste, which clogged the furnaces.
But special grates were designed to burn this coal, and by this resort
it was practicable to use a supply from this field at the diamond
mines. De Beers Company was soon taking by contract practically the
entire product of the Stormberg seams at a price of about 20s. per ton at the shipping point.
Not
long after the opening of the Stormberg mines, coal seams of much
greater width and promise were discovered at Indwe, a point about
seventy miles east from Molteno and Cyphergat. Here the prospective
returns from energetic devel-
