THE PLATINUM DEPOSITS AND MINES OF SOUTH AFRICA

First edition: 326 pages, frontispiece, 3 folding maps, 34 plates, 37 text figures, dark blue cloth gilt, a very good copy.

(https://www.s2a3.org.za/bio/Biograph_final.php?serial=3015) Percy Wagner (1885-1929),  ‘During his relatively short career Wagner produced three books, seven Geological Survey memoirs, and over 100 papers. He was an extremely hard worker who maintained the highest professional standards. Many of his memoirs and papers were reports on the numerous economic mineral deposits that he investigated: Tin near Cape Town (1909), graphite-coated diamonds from Premier Mine (1914), graphite-bearing Xenoliths from the Jagersfontein Diamond Mine (1916), asbestos, graphite, magnesite, mica, corundum, talc, fluorspar and barytes used in the arts and industries (1917-1919, a series commissioned by the government's Scientific and Technical Committee), corundum of the Zoutpansberg (1918), kimberlite from the Belgian Congo (1921), lead and vanadium in the Transvaal (with M. Fergusson, 1920), mineral occurrences in the Namib Desert (1921), iron ore deposits near Walfish Bay (1921), the Mutue-Fides Stavoren tinfields (1921), the Crocodile River iron deposits (1921), descloizite from South West Africa (1922), chromite of the Bushveld Complex (1923), a Transvaal silver lead deposit (1924), ornamental building stones of the Transvaal (1924), gold near Rustenburg (1927), the Potgietersrus cassiterite pipes (1926), chrome in Zimbabwe and the Transvaal (1930), and many more. With Hans Merensky* as co-author he wrote "The diamond deposits on the coast of Little Namaqualand" (Transactions of the Geological Society of South Africa, 1928). Another major publication was The iron deposits of the Union of South Africa, published as Geological Survey, Memoir No. 26 (1928). He made particularly important contributions to the study of the tin, nickel and platinum deposits of the Bushveld Complex. This work culminated in the publication of his monumental work, The platinum deposits and mines of South Africa (Edinburgh, 1929).’