The Special Collections Book of the Week this week is:

A Guide to the Gold Fields of South Africa (with map) by William H. Penning.

William Henry Penning was a British geologist, employed on the Geological Survey of Britain from 1867 to 1882. Penning practiced as a consulting geologist in the South African Republic (ZAR) in the 1880s. In 1883 he published A Guide to the Goldfields of South Africa, in which he described conditions on the goldfields at Lydenburg, De Kaap, Tati (near present Francistown, Botswana), and Matabeleland (in Zimbabwe). Though including little information about the geology of these regions, the book contained interesting information on the gold finds by early prospectors, including Karl Mauch. Penning was a Fellow of the Geological Society of London and in September 1881 he was elected a corresponding member of the South African Philosophical Society.

UPSpace Access: http://hdl.handle.net/2263/12716

This book is available at Special Collections, housed on level 5 of the Merensky 2 Library, and is part of our Africana (ZA) Collection.

The Special Collections unit of the Department of Library Services plays a stewardship role in the acquisition and preservation of the Library's rare and valuable information resources, making them accessible to students, staff and researchers, as well as safeguarding them for future generations.