and when they are discharged, are not only better men, but people
in whose work employers of labour have confidence. I learned that
the great public mountain roads in Cape Colony have thus been
constructed by convict labour, at a comparatively small cost, while
the convict acquires skill and useful training. Going up country,
my attention, among other matters, was turned to the distribution
of mineral wealth and difficulties of water supply, for, as Sir
Frederick Young has remarked, the water supply is one of the great
problems which all persons have to consider in South Africa. The
season during which rain falls is short, and the rain drains
rapidly down comparatively steep inclined surfaces, so that science
of many kinds has to be enlisted to conserve the water, and turn
the supply to account. I found the rocks of much of the country
have been curiously compressed and hardened and thrown into
parallel irregular folds, and that these rocks were afterwards worn
down by the action of water, at a time when the land was still
beneath the ocean, with the result that many basin-shaped
depressions are preserved and exposed, each of which holds a
certain amount of water. Just as we never dream of putting down a
well in this country without knowing the positions of the
water-bearing strata, so it is hopeless to bore profitably for
water in the Colony till the districts are defined over which the
water-bearing basins are spread. Nothing arrests the escape of
water in its course through the rocks more efficiently than
intrusive sheets of igneous rock which rise to the surface, but
until the distribution of these dykes is systematically recorded it
will not be possible to open out all the water which is preserved
underground. There is no doubt that by utilising geological facts
of this nature, a better water supply may be obtained, which will
enable more land to be brought under cultivation, and larger crops