THE DIAMOND FIELDS OF SOUTHERN AFRICA

First edition: 247 pages, frontispiece, title page soiled and repaired at the gutter with tape, 2 folding maps, 36 plates - 2 folding at the end (second map has been repaired at the hinge), other illustrations in the text, original green cloth titled gilt on the spine - the cloth is frayed along the edges of the spine, overall a good copy.

Tipped onto the front endpapers is a typed letter under the letterhead of the Frank Smith Diamond Estates and Exploration Company, Limited, dated 6th March, 1914 presenting this copy to J.L. Van Eyssen,General Manager, Frank Smith D.E. & E. Co. Ltd.

(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).’