No written records exist of the very early history of the Phalaborwa district. It has been left to the archaeologists and the geologists to reconstruct the past as best they can. On one point there is complete agreement among the geologists, and this is that Phalaborwa was once an area of intense volcanic activity. It is estimated that some 2 000 million years ago a great volcano blew a hole in the earth's granite crust here, and that this was followed by later eruptions. A distinguished scientist' explains what is believed to have happened: "It seems as if in ages long past, in fact in remote pre-Cambrian times, a volcano existed in this area", he writes. "Somehow the stock of this volcano became filled with carbonate rock. Just how this happened nobody is clear, but everybody agrees that it did happen.

During this carbonate deposition . . . there were also deposited certain sulphide minerals containing copper, considerable apatite and magnetite2 ..." And, he might have added, mica, zirconium oxide (represented by the mineral known as baddeleyite), and small quantities of thorium. All these deposits are the result of the upthrust of the various volcanic eruptions. Together they form what geologists call a "pipe", not unlike the vertical volcanic pipes in which diamonds are found in other parts of the country. The pipe in this case is an enormous one, its outcrop having an almost elliptical area of about 20 square kilometres. Within this area lies the vast mixed bag of metals and minerals which is described as the Phalaborwa Igneous Complex—and undoubtedly "complex" is the right word. "Igneous" means simply, that the rock to which this adjective is applied, was originally molten and became inserted into the country rock and then solidified. Of the deposits within the area of what was once the throat of the volcano, some 95 percent is pyroxenite, a term applied to a rock that consists largely of "pyroxenes". Pyroxenes, in their turn, are crystalline silicates that contain two metallic oxides. In this case the pyroxenite contains some 7% of phosphate. The pyroxenite deposit is enormous. Near the centre of it, however, at the site of what was once Loole Kop, there is an "inner circle" of a vastly different rock that has been named "Foskorite", an adaptation from the name of the company that was formed to develop the phosphate deposit. It was originally christened "Phoscorite" by the geologists who identified it, but later changed to its present name to match the short title of the company that first mined it. The foskorite constitutes only three percent of the total area of the deposit, but is richer in phosphate, and in other minerals, than the main body of pyroxenite. Within it, and surrounded by it, is the core of the entire deposit, a pipe of carbonatite which contains copper and iron. This forms two percent of the total deposit.

Thus, if you were looking down on the remains of this ancient volcano, you would in theory be looking at the cross-section of something that resembles a gigantic sugarstick, first a thick outer layer of pyroxenite, then a comparatively thin inner layer of foskorite, and finally the small central core of the whole complex—the carbonatite. These two central deposits, the foskorite and the carbonatite, which were thrust up by volcanic action and outcropped at Loole Kop, lie at the heart of the immense deposit of pyroxenite. At this point the magnetite outcropped, with the result that the early Iron Age men found here all the iron ore they wanted, without having to do more than collect the loose ore on the slopes of the hill. They established their furnaces nearby and it was thus that Loole Kop became the centre of the iron industry. They had no use for the phosphate. Apart from this primitive mining operation, the vast area of mineralised rock lay there undisturbed through all the millions of years during which plant life evolved on the surface of the Earth, and Man rose to his feet and began to walk and use his hands for the purposes for which God had given them to him. The first small scratch in the area came when South African Phosphates began its brief career in 1930, as a supplier of fertilizer in the form of crushed phosphate rock, extracted from the pyroxenite deposit.
Later this company's claims were taken over by another company that called itself the Palabora Phosphate and Vermiculite Company, (the officially approved spelling "Phalaborwa" had not been settled at that time, and most people wrote the name as they pronounced it). After this, a renowned prospector of the old school, Carter S. Cleveland, who had worked in the district for many years fossicking for corundum and anything else he could find, came across a golden-yellow deposit that was completely outside his experience.

The oral traditions of the baPhalaborwa say that their forefathers came from Bokhalaka (the present Zimbabwe) under the leadership of a chief called Malatshi, and to this day the tribe has an alternative name, the baMalatshi. It is uncertain when the migration from Bokhalaka began, but early Portuguese records are said to show that during the 17th century the tribes of the so-called "Monomotapa empire" were driven southwards by waves of Rozwi invaders from the north, and it may have been at this time that the baPhalaborwa arrived at their new home. There they routed the Shokane, a tribe so primitive that they are reputed not to have known the use of fire. They then settled at Scalene, which is only some three kilometres from the present town of Phalaborwa, and about four kilometres from Loole Kop, and here they began the smelting of iron and the manufacture of hoes, axes, spearheads and arrowheads. The kraal of the chiefs of the tribe was built on the slopes of the koppie Sealene, and this is a place much revered by all

baPhalaborwa. Over the centuries 25 chiefs and sub-chiefs were buried on this koppie. The present chief still regularly conducts the traditional ceremonies of appeasement of the ancestral spirits here. It is still the belief of the baPhalaborwa that a "commoner" (i.e. someone who is not a member of the chief's family) who climbs Sealene will become lame. This koppie, and the neighbouring koppie ofKgopolwe, have been declared national historical monuments by the National Monuments Council, and will be preserved for all time. The koppies, with some 38 morgen of ground, which is in the mining area controlled by Foskor, were presented to the nation by the Corporation. Two types of primitive smelting furnaces have been identified at Phalaborwa. One type, used for the smelting of iron ore, was constructed in the form of a vertical cylinder, approximately 75 centimetres high, with a diameter of some 50 centimetres. This had blow-pipe openings at ground level that allowed three bellows to be used simultaneously to produce great heat. The second type of furnace was used for the smelting of copper. This was made in the shape of a beehive with a small opening at the top and only one opening for bellows.

This type of furnace is rare and only a few examples survive. The paucity of copper furnaces and copper objects suggests that there was not much copper smelting at Phalaborwa. This was probably because the copper was more difficult to obtain than the iron. However, there was a peculiar form of"currency" in the district hundreds of years ago. An object, called a "lirale" (plural "marale"), was used almost as coinage is in modern times. It was a copper rod about 45 centimetres long and about 12 millimetres in diameter, with a projection at one end that made it look rather like a sawn-off golf club. The information available about these copper rods, other than that they were, and are valuable, is extremely vague. Some researchers have formed the theory that they were not made by the baPhalaborwa at all, but by another tribe who obtained the copper from Phalaborwa. However, the old men of the tribe maintain that their forebears made these castings. They are greatly prized and are not obtainable today at any price. The present chief of the tribe does not even possess one. If proof were needed that the Phalaborwa tribesmen were dedicated iron workers, it must surely lie in the fact that they chose to settle in this area. The presence of the tsetse fly meant that they could not keep cattle, normally the most prized possession of the Blacks. On top of this were other drawbacks,— malaria, black-water fever and bilharzia were rife, and the annual rainfall, at an average of 450 mm a year, was so low that they grew crops with difficulty. Yet, despite the deterrents and the hardships they faced, they declared that Phalaborwa was "better than the South". That suggests that the smelting and working of iron was their main occupation—and a profitable one. A question to which the archaeologists have not yet found an answer, is the unsolved mystery of who were

the first inhabitants of the district. In 1965 Dr N. J. van der Merwe, then Associate Professor of the Department of Anthropology in the University of Binghamton, New York, conducted excavations at Phalaborwa. While he was there, blasting operations revealed ancient workings, including a narrow six metre shaft, a relic of early mining operations.

At the bottom of this shaft were found deposits of charcoal. These were subjected to the now well-known radio-carbon tests that can establish the age of organic specimens. The tests that Dr van der Merwe made, showed that the tree from which the charcoal came, died roughly 1 200 years ago. Assuming that 50 to 100 years elapsed between the death of the tree and the burning of the wood, this gives a date of about A.D. 860.
The shaft must have been sunk more than 1 000 years ago, which means that it could not possibly have been the work of the baPhalaborwa. One lot of evidence seems to show that the tribe did not reach the district until they were driven out of Bokhalaka some 300 years ago.
This of course is 800 years later than the date of those charcoal fragments.

Louis Trichardt and Hendrik Potgieter made their way to the Portuguese coast after a fruitless search for the van Rensburg party. The Lowveld below Kowyn's Pass became the great hunting ground of the men of the old Republic. They trekked here in the winter with their stock and returned to their farms on the Highveld with wagons laden with biltong and antelope hides. In 1890 came rumours of the discovery of gold on the banks of the Selati River near Leydsdorp. This started a rush to the "Selati River Gold Field" where Karl Mauch, the most optimistic geologist of the 19th century, had prophesied gold would be found. The quantity of gold recovered in this region would not have been of much use to a modern mining company. Nevertheless it proved enough to launch one of the great railway scandals of the day. The Baron Oppenheim and his brother floated the Selati Railway Company, in Brussels of all places, to build a railway line from Komatipoort to the "new Transvaal gold field" on the Selati River. It should be added that the line between the Portuguese border and Komatipoort had been opened on July 1 st, 1891, though the first train from Delagoa Bay did not reach Pretoria until October, 1894.

The Oppenheim brothers and their shareholders did not wait to find out how the new gold field was prospering. They went ahead and laid 80 kilometres of track from Komatipoort to the point where Skukusa camp now stands in the Kruger Park. The next step was to build a bridge across the Sabie River. But that was the end of the line and of the company, which crashed owing its creditors R800 000. When one adds up the expenditure on this 80 kilometre line, it comes out as one of the most expensive railways ever built.

After the company had gone bankrupt, the line lay idle for 18 years, with stacks of material and implements rusting beside the track, and a locomotive standing in the sheds at Komatipoort. It became Stevenson-Hamilton's private line when he first took up his appointment as Chief Ranger of the Sabie Game Reserve. If he wanted to get to Komatipoort he mounted a trolley, and propelled by manpower, made a leisurely joureney through the wild country he was shaping into a reserve. In Komatipoort he caught the train to Pretoria, or to where he wanted to go. This was the only use to which the Selati line was ever put until 1912 when the South African Railways took it over and extended it, first to Tzaneen, and later to Soekmekaar, one of the most picturesque routes in South Africa, since it takes you through the big game country. A railway made a great difference to an area that had always been regarded as "the back of

beyond". But the greatest achievement was accomplished by the renowned Dr Siegfried Annecke, pioneer of mosquito control.
Dr Annecke set out to put an end to malaria in the Lowveld, and by heroic measures and sheer determination he won the battle. Spreading out from Tzaneen, there is now a beautiful and fertile area where anybody can live and work, without fear of the disease that was once the curse of the Lowveld. The men who knew the Phalaborwa district best in the early days were the hunters and the prospectors, who were tough, fearless men. They had to be for they never knew when they might walk into a herd of buffalo or meet a lion. In later years, when the elephants began to return to what was still called "the game reserve" they were a considerable source of worry to the lonely men who camped there from time to time. Any prospector who worked in the district before the fence went up on the boundaries of the park, will tell you that the sight of a man digging a prospecting pit arouses an elephant's curiosity. He has to know what's going on, even if it means coming right into the camp for a close-up view of the proceedings. Cleveland was perhaps the best-known of all the prospectors. Cleveland Kop is named after him, and there is a Cleveland Place in Phalaborwa. Then there was Valentine, the corundum specialist, who made a number of important finds. Another well-known character in the district was a former British soldier named Scammell, who found and mined a deposit of copper-bearing ore. Some 80 years ago he owned and operated the Guide copper mine, quite close to where Phalaborwa township is today. Apart from these men, whose names are still remembered in the district, there is not one free-lance mining man who has not been there at one time or another. And the professional geologists, whether they were asked to go there or not, have all paid Phalaborwa the compliment of visiting it—sometimes half a dozen times—just to see what has turned up since they were last there. I treasure a remark one of them made to me, "I could have made a fortune at Phalaborwa if only I'd had Rl 500 000 and five years to decide what I was going to mine!"