On a serious note, History Lesson.
In 1685 French astronomer Fr Guy Tachard wrote “ some folk feel sure that at the Cape there are gold deposits”. Well, as things turned out there are, but not in payable amounts. In 1859 a Captain Glendinning found gold on his property at Camps Bay, and in 1865 an employee of Thorne and Stuttafords found gold on Table Mountain. During 1886 claims of gold fines came from Noordhoek and Glencairn, and a Lion’s Head Gold Syndicate was searching for gold on a farm owned by a Jan Hofmeyer (not “Onze Jan”) on the slopes of Lion’s Head. In 1887 they struck gold and the Cape Argus of 23rd November printed a Supplement of the mine and its workings, which was situated about 100 m below today’s start of the Lion’s Head hiking trail on Signal Hill road. A gold rush stared with seekers climbing all over the mountain and a Mr Jacobus Vlok falling to his death. The Argus of 2nd December announced the formation of a new company to be called the Lion’s Head (Cape Town) Gold Mining Company that offered shares. A shaft of 45 m was sunk and from a ton of quartz containing pyrite, two ounces of gold was obtained at Wilkinson’s Mill in Kloof Street. Dr Paul Hahn of the south African College did an assay that looked promising, and believed gold could be found anywhere in a zone between the contact of granite and slate on the Sea Point seashore to the saddle between Devil’s Peak and Table Mountain. Under the watchful eye of the Commissioner of Crown Lands, Friedrich Schermbrucker, 7 ½ tons of ore were despatched to Britain and Germany, but only 10 pounds were tested, and the assay was not done by a requested chlorination process, so the results showed no gold. This was a great blow to the Mining Company who could now attract no more investors. By 1893 the Company had disbanded because in that year the City Council bought their property. The shaft remained open until 1951 when a fire fighter battling a mountain fire nearly fell in, so the entrance was bulldozed over and the lid was literally put on Cape Town’s gold mining hopes. It is unlikely that there were payable amounts of gold, but as the overseas assays were botched, nobody can say for sure. Anyway the mountain was saved from the eyesore of mining operations, and today is a protected area. TVJ