Resumo de Book Of Facts - Reader's Digest

RICHES FORM THE EARTH

BILLION DOLLAR LOSER

The man who discovered South Africa?s vast Wit-watersrand gold his claim for 10 dollar. In an affidavit to Pretoria Mines Department in July 1886, a prospector named George Harrison reported that he had found a ?payable gold field?. This simple statemement launched one of the world?s biggest gold rushed.
Fortunes- seeker from around the globe converged on the bleak, wind-swept patch of land in the southern African interior. By 1889, 630,500 ounces of gold had been dug from the reef. And Johannesburg, then a three- year- old shanty town of tents and wood-and- iron shacks, was on its way to becoming one of Africa?s most important cities.
The Witwatersrand (Ridge of White Waters), an 80km (50 miles) long rocky outcrop, provided the bulk of the world?s gold output for the next few decades. Since then, six other huge fields, stretching in a 480km (300 miles) arc from the eastern Transvaal to Orange Free State, have been discovered. Together, they produce almost 800 tones of refined gold a year, 71 per cent of the world?s supply.
Of George Harrison, the billion- dollar- loser, there is no further trace. After collecting his 10 pounds, he became just another prospector who had sold out too cheaply and too soon,

FOOL?S GOLD

Many early prospectors mistook iron pyrites- a gold-coloured iron ore- for gold. The ore became known as fool?s gold and was considered worthless. Today, however, it does have a real value. It is used in the large scale production of sulphuric acid.

GOLD- PALTED COFFINS

The ancient Egyptians often plated their coffins and monuments with gold hand-beaten to a thickness of 1/2000th of a millimeter (1/50,000th of an inch), a fraction of the thickness of rice paper.
Modern technique can do even better. Gold is so malleable that in its finest form( 24 carat) an ingot measuring 50X 25X 25 mm (2 cubic inches), about the size of matchbox, can be beaten or rolled out leaf would be less than 1/ 10,000th of a millimeter ( 1/250,000th) of an inch) thick

ALL THE WORLD?S GOLD
The total amount of gold produced since the Stone Age is estimated to be about 100,000 tones, and about half of this has been mined since 1850. All of it would form a cube measuring about 18m (60ft) on all sides. It would occupy little more than the area of a tennis court.

DOWN- UNDER GOLD-DIGGERS

The Australian gold rush of 1851 gave the Australians their nickname: ?diggers?. In 1852, 370,000 immigrants, mostly from Britain arrived in Australia. The population of Victoria more than doubled. The colony?s capital, Melbourne, emptied of adult men. Business halted, schools closed and ships lay idle in the bay, deserted by their gold-hungry crews.
The rush had been started by an Australian miner Edward Hammond Hargraves, who was convinced by his experiences in California during the gold rush of 1848-9 that he could find gold in his own country. In February 1851 he panned out gold from a creek near Bathurst. New South Wales and found more gold in another river. Hatgraves received a reward of 10,000 pounds and a life pension for his finds

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