91-759: The Anglo-Boer War Memorial was originally called the Rand Regiments Memorial and dedicated to the men of the Witwatersrand who joined as British soldiers in the Rand Regiments and who had lost their lives during the Second Boer War (1899–1902). The memorial is now next door to the South African National Museum of Military History . It was rededicated on 10 October 1999 to all people who died during
182-834: A continental divide , with the run-off to the north draining into the Indian Ocean via the Crocodile and Limpopo rivers, while the run-off to the south drains via the Vaal into the Orange River and ultimately into the Atlantic Ocean . Because of the extraordinary quantities of gold that have been extracted from the Witwatersrand rocks, the South African currency was named the rand in 1961 upon
273-662: A 56 km long east–west ridge over which several rivers running to the north form waterfalls, giving rise to the name Witwatersrand, which in Afrikaans means "Ridge of White Waters". There was no free oxygen in Earth's atmosphere until about 2 billion years ago, before the appearance and sufficient development of photosynthesizing cyanobacteria . The oxygen produced by these microorganisms rapidly reacted with, amongst others, Fe ions dissolved in water, precipitating insoluble red iron oxide ( hematite ). For various reasons,
364-504: A bronze sculpture that would adorn the top of the memorial as a gift to the people of Johannesburg. The bronze sculpture was commissioned by Sir Hugh Lane , who had hoped to have it designed by Auguste Rodin , but settled on Naoum Aronson . Designed in Paris, the bronze sculpture, when finally mounted atop the memorial in April 1914, would face to the west. As to what the sculpture represents,
455-598: A capital of £250 000 . His brother Thomas was the first chairman. British English British English (abbreviations: BrE , en-GB , and BE ) is the set of varieties of the English language native to the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland . More narrowly, it can refer specifically to the English language in England , or, more broadly, to the collective dialects of English throughout
546-504: A century as Received Pronunciation (RP). However, due to language evolution and changing social trends, some linguists argue that RP is losing prestige or has been replaced by another accent, one that the linguist Geoff Lindsey for instance calls Standard Southern British English. Others suggest that more regionally-oriented standard accents are emerging in England. Even in Scotland and Northern Ireland, RP exerts little influence in
637-508: A greater movement, normally [əʊ], [əʉ] or [əɨ]. Dropping a morphological grammatical number , in collective nouns , is stronger in British English than North American English. This is to treat them as plural when once grammatically singular, a perceived natural number prevails, especially when applying to institutional nouns and groups of people. The noun 'police', for example, undergoes this treatment: Police are investigating
728-406: A lesser class or social status and often discounted or considered of a low intelligence. Another contribution to the standardisation of British English was the introduction of the printing press to England in the mid-15th century. In doing so, William Caxton enabled a common language and spelling to be dispersed among the entirety of England at a much faster rate. Samuel Johnson's A Dictionary of
819-659: A process called T-glottalisation . National media, being based in London, have seen the glottal stop spreading more widely than it once was in word endings, not being heard as "no [ʔ] " and bottle of water being heard as "bo [ʔ] le of wa [ʔ] er". It is still stigmatised when used at the beginning and central positions, such as later , while often has all but regained /t/ . Other consonants subject to this usage in Cockney English are p , as in pa [ʔ] er and k as in ba [ʔ] er. In most areas of England and Wales, outside
910-484: A range of blurring and ambiguity". Variations exist in formal (both written and spoken) English in the United Kingdom. For example, the adjective wee is almost exclusively used in parts of Scotland, north-east England, Northern Ireland, Ireland, and occasionally Yorkshire , whereas the adjective little is predominant elsewhere. Nevertheless, there is a meaningful degree of uniformity in written English within
1001-520: A regional accent or dialect. However, about 2% of Britons speak with an accent called Received Pronunciation (also called "the King's English", "Oxford English" and " BBC English" ), that is essentially region-less. It derives from a mixture of the Midlands and Southern dialects spoken in London in the early modern period. It is frequently used as a model for teaching English to foreign learners. In
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#17327726914341092-471: A shallow sea, conveniently named the "Witwatersrand Sea". The resulting 2500–4500 m thick layer of sediments is termed the "West Rand Group" of Witwatersrand rocks. The second phase, which lasted for 200 million years, followed on from the first phase, with on-land deposits, resulting from the retreat of the Witwatersrand Sea, leaving a wide almost flat coastal plain over which rivers from
1183-557: A site be found for a memorial and that the Town Council start a scheme to build it. The Johannesburg Town Council thought that the memorial should be dedicated to all those that had died in the war but Phillips and the committee would disagree and continued with the project. Sir Lionel Phillips and his company, H. Eckstein and Co, purchased 40 acres (16 ha) in the Sachsenwald Plantation ( Saxonwold ) as land for
1274-725: Is also due to London-centric influences. Examples of R-dropping are car and sugar , where the R is not pronounced. British dialects differ on the extent of diphthongisation of long vowels, with southern varieties extensively turning them into diphthongs, and with northern dialects normally preserving many of them. As a comparison, North American varieties could be said to be in-between. Long vowels /iː/ and /uː/ are usually preserved, and in several areas also /oː/ and /eː/, as in go and say (unlike other varieties of English, that change them to [oʊ] and [eɪ] respectively). Some areas go as far as not diphthongising medieval /iː/ and /uː/, that give rise to modern /aɪ/ and /aʊ/; that is, for example, in
1365-451: Is also one of the largest meteor impacts to have left its imprint on present-day Earth geology. A meteor 10–15 km across created a 300 km diameter crater, distorting all the rock strata within that circle. Johannesburg is just within the outer edge of this impact crater. In the immediate vicinity of the impact all the subterranean strata were uplifted and upturned, so that Witwatersrand rocks are exposed in an arc 25 km away from
1456-516: Is clear that for the next 200 million years the flood plain was repeatedly inundated, sometimes eroded, and sediments re-deposited. The result was a 2500 m thick layer of rock that is termed the "Central Rand Group", which together with the "West Rand Group", forms the "Witwatersrand Supergroup". It is the younger Central Rand Group that contains most of the gold bearing conglomerates, locally referred to as banket , that are today of great economic importance. The "Central Rand Group" of deposits
1547-795: Is included in style guides issued by various publishers including The Times newspaper, the Oxford University Press and the Cambridge University Press . The Oxford University Press guidelines were originally drafted as a single broadsheet page by Horace Henry Hart, and were at the time (1893) the first guide of their type in English; they were gradually expanded and eventually published, first as Hart's Rules , and in 2002 as part of The Oxford Manual of Style . Comparable in authority and stature to The Chicago Manual of Style for published American English ,
1638-520: Is now northwest Germany and the northern Netherlands. The resident population at this time was generally speaking Common Brittonic —the insular variety of Continental Celtic , which was influenced by the Roman occupation. This group of languages ( Welsh , Cornish , Cumbric ) cohabited alongside English into the modern period, but due to their remoteness from the Germanic languages , influence on English
1729-405: Is sometimes carried out at depths of 4 kilometres (2.5 mi) below the surface. The Witwatersrand Basin is a largely underground geological formation which surfaces in the Witwatersrand. It holds the world's largest known gold reserves and has produced over 40 000 tonnes (1.3 × 10 ozt), which represents about 22% of all the gold accounted for above the surface. The basin straddles
1820-463: Is the case for English used by European Union institutions. In China, both British English and American English are taught. The UK government actively teaches and promotes English around the world and operates in over 200 countries . English is a West Germanic language that originated from the Anglo-Frisian dialects brought to Britain by Germanic settlers from various parts of what
1911-547: The Chambers Dictionary , and the Collins Dictionary record actual usage rather than attempting to prescribe it. In addition, vocabulary and usage change with time; words are freely borrowed from other languages and other varieties of English, and neologisms are frequent. For historical reasons dating back to the rise of London in the ninth century, the form of language spoken in London and
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#17327726914342002-534: The British Isles taken as a single umbrella variety, for instance additionally incorporating Scottish English , Welsh English , and Northern Irish English . Tom McArthur in the Oxford Guide to World English acknowledges that British English shares "all the ambiguities and tensions [with] the word 'British' and as a result can be used and interpreted in two ways, more broadly or more narrowly, within
2093-658: The East Midlands became standard English within the Court, and ultimately became the basis for generally accepted use in the law, government, literature and education in Britain. The standardisation of British English is thought to be from both dialect levelling and a thought of social superiority. Speaking in the Standard dialect created class distinctions; those who did not speak the standard English would be considered of
2184-493: The Royal Spanish Academy with Spanish. Standard British English differs notably in certain vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation features from standard American English and certain other standard English varieties around the world. British and American spelling also differ in minor ways. The accent, or pronunciation system, of standard British English, based in southeastern England, has been known for over
2275-490: The Scots language or Scottish Gaelic ). Each group includes a range of dialects, some markedly different from others. The various British dialects also differ in the words that they have borrowed from other languages. Around the middle of the 15th century, there were points where within the 5 major dialects there were almost 500 ways to spell the word though . Following its last major survey of English Dialects (1949–1950),
2366-573: The University of Leeds has started work on a new project. In May 2007 the Arts and Humanities Research Council awarded a grant to Leeds to study British regional dialects. The team are sifting through a large collection of examples of regional slang words and phrases turned up by the "Voices project" run by the BBC , in which they invited the public to send in examples of English still spoken throughout
2457-610: The West Country and other near-by counties of the UK, the consonant R is not pronounced if not followed by a vowel, lengthening the preceding vowel instead. This phenomenon is known as non-rhoticity . In these same areas, a tendency exists to insert an R between a word ending in a vowel and a next word beginning with a vowel. This is called the intrusive R . It could be understood as a merger, in that words that once ended in an R and words that did not are no longer treated differently. This
2548-645: The crust is derived from gold in the mantle which resulted from a meteorite bombardment some 3900 million years ago (i.e., at approximately the time that the Kaapvaal Craton formed). The gold bearing meteorite events occurred millions of years after the segregation of the Earth's core. The gold in the Witwatersrand Basin area was deposited in Archean river deltas having been washed down from surrounding gold-rich greenstone belts to
2639-494: The "West Rand Group" of sediments caused the Witwatersrand sea to retreat. The area of the craton on top of which Johannesburg is now situated, became a vast riverine plain, which extended along the entire northern and western shoreline of the shrunken sea, in an arc extending from Evander in the east, through Johannesburg, Carletonville and then southwards to Klerksdorp and Welkom in the south-west. The rivers formed braided deltas with many interlacing, slow flowing channels where all
2730-484: The "Witwatersrand Sea" to the south, where the earlier sediments that form the older rocks of the Witwatersrand Supergroup had been deposited. Some of these gold bearing fan deltas are now at depths of 4 km (2.5 mi) below the surface. Although many of the older mines, around Johannesburg, are now nearly exhausted, the Witwatersrand Basin still produces most of South Africa's gold and much of
2821-413: The "Witwatersrand Supergroup", consists of very hard erosion resistant quartzites , banded ironstones and some marine lava deposits, interspersed with softer, more easily eroded tillites , mudstones and conglomerates . The oldest rocks (laid down 2.97 billion years ago) form the northern scarp of the Witwatersrand plateau; the youngest (laid down 2.71 billion years ago) are those that form
Anglo-Boer War Memorial (Johannesburg) - Misplaced Pages Continue
2912-629: The 21st century. RP, while long established as the standard English accent around the globe due to the spread of the British Empire , is distinct from the standard English pronunciation in some parts of the world; most prominently, RP notably contrasts with standard North American accents. In the 21st century, dictionaries like the Oxford English Dictionary , the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English ,
3003-778: The Afrikaaner population who had fought against the British during the war. The memorial was rededicated on 10 October 1999 in "memory of the men, women and children of all races and all nations who lost their lives in the Anglo Boer War, 1899–1902". 1 June 2002 saw a gathering at the memorial to commemorate the hundred-year anniversary of the end of the Second Boer War, on 31 May 1902. A total of 22 000 British soldiers, 7 000 Boers, 24 000 black men, women and children, and 22 000 white women and children who had died during
3094-497: The Archean Eon, but island arcs did form. It was the coalescence of several of these island arcs that led to the formation of the Kaapvaal Craton , one of the first microcontinents to form on Earth about 3.9 billion years ago. Its size and position relative to Southern Africa today are indicated in the diagram on the left. About 3 billion years ago local cooling of the underlying asthenosphere caused subsidence of
3185-836: The English Language (1755) was a large step in the English-language spelling reform , where the purification of language focused on standardising both speech and spelling. By the early 20th century, British authors had produced numerous books intended as guides to English grammar and usage, a few of which achieved sufficient acclaim to have remained in print for long periods and to have been reissued in new editions after some decades. These include, most notably of all, Fowler's Modern English Usage and The Complete Plain Words by Sir Ernest Gowers . Detailed guidance on many aspects of writing British English for publication
3276-666: The Germanic schwein ) is the animal in the field bred by the occupied Anglo-Saxons and pork (like the French porc ) is the animal at the table eaten by the occupying Normans. Another example is the Anglo-Saxon cu meaning cow, and the French bœuf meaning beef. Cohabitation with the Scandinavians resulted in a significant grammatical simplification and lexical enrichment of the Anglo-Frisian core of English;
3367-922: The Oxford Manual is a fairly exhaustive standard for published British English that writers can turn to in the absence of specific guidance from their publishing house. British English is the basis of, and very similar to, Commonwealth English . Commonwealth English is English as spoken and written in the Commonwealth countries , though often with some local variation. This includes English spoken in Australia , Malta , New Zealand , Nigeria , and South Africa . It also includes South Asian English used in South Asia, in English varieties in Southeast Asia , and in parts of Africa. Canadian English
3458-666: The Rand or, less commonly, the Reef ) is a 56-kilometre-long (35 mi), north-facing scarp in South Africa . It consists of a hard, erosion-resistant quartzite metamorphic rock, over which several north-flowing rivers form waterfalls, which account for the name Witwatersrand, meaning 'white water ridge' in Afrikaans . This east-west-running scarp can be traced with only one short gap, from Bedfordview (about 10 km [6.2 mi] west of O.R. Tambo International Airport ) in
3549-531: The Second Boer War and renamed the Anglo-Boer War Memorial. Soon after the Second Boer War ended in 1902, Randlord Sir Lionel Phillips and others proposed in 1904, a memorial to commemorate the British soldiers that had died in the war. A Rand Regiments' Memorial Committee was formed to raise money for the memorial. In September 1904, Captain George A. Hamilton-Dickson proposed a motion that
3640-712: The South East, there are significantly different accents; the Cockney accent spoken by some East Londoners is strikingly different from Received Pronunciation (RP). Cockney rhyming slang can be (and was initially intended to be) difficult for outsiders to understand, although the extent of its use is often somewhat exaggerated. Londoners speak with a mixture of accents, depending on ethnicity, neighbourhood, class, age, upbringing, and sundry other factors. Estuary English has been gaining prominence in recent decades: it has some features of RP and some of Cockney. Immigrants to
3731-550: The UK in recent decades have brought many more languages to the country and particularly to London. Surveys started in 1979 by the Inner London Education Authority discovered over 125 languages being spoken domestically by the families of the inner city's schoolchildren. Notably Multicultural London English , a sociolect that emerged in the late 20th century spoken mainly by young, working-class people in multicultural parts of London . Since
Anglo-Boer War Memorial (Johannesburg) - Misplaced Pages Continue
3822-576: The United Kingdom , as well as within the countries themselves. The major divisions are normally classified as English English (or English as spoken in England (which is itself broadly grouped into Southern English , West Country , East and West Midlands English and Northern English ), Northern Irish English (in Northern Ireland), Welsh English (not to be confused with the Welsh language ), and Scottish English (not to be confused with
3913-426: The United Kingdom, and this could be described by the term British English . The forms of spoken English, however, vary considerably more than in most other areas of the world where English is spoken and so a uniform concept of British English is more difficult to apply to the spoken language. Globally, countries that are former British colonies or members of the Commonwealth tend to follow British English, as
4004-619: The Vredefort Dome, virtually all the other outcrops occur in an arc approximately 80–120 km from the centre of the impact crater, to the west, north-west, north and north-east. Thus, it is possible that if it had not been for the Vredefort asteroid strike 2 billion years ago, we would either have never discovered the rich gold deposits beneath the Southern African surface, or they would have been eroded away during
4095-465: The West Scottish accent. Phonological features characteristic of British English revolve around the pronunciation of the letter R, as well as the dental plosive T and some diphthongs specific to this dialect. Once regarded as a Cockney feature, in a number of forms of spoken British English, /t/ has become commonly realised as a glottal stop [ʔ] when it is in the intervocalic position, in
4186-463: The Witwatersrand, these were alluvial concentrates in contemporary rivers, or in quartz veins, in the form that gold had always been found elsewhere on earth. When George Harrison, probably accompanied by George Walker, found gold on the farm Langlaagte, 5 km (3 mi) west of what would become the city of Johannesburg, in an outcrop of conglomerate rocks, in February 1886, they assumed that this
4277-488: The award of the grant in 2007, Leeds University stated: that they were "very pleased"—and indeed, "well chuffed"—at receiving their generous grant. He could, of course, have been "bostin" if he had come from the Black Country , or if he was a Scouser he would have been well "made up" over so many spondoolicks, because as a Geordie might say, £460,000 is a "canny load of chink". Most people in Britain speak with
4368-582: The basin is deeply buried under younger rocks, but outcrops occur in Gauteng , the Free State , as well as in some of the surrounding Provinces. The outcrop in Gauteng forms the Witwatersrand ridge, from which the basin and its rocks derive their name. It was on the southern portion of this ridge that gold was first discovered on the farm Langlaagte in 1886, 5 km west of Johannesburg . Since this gold
4459-567: The country. The BBC Voices project also collected hundreds of news articles about how the British speak English from swearing through to items on language schools. This information will also be collated and analysed by Johnson's team both for content and for where it was reported. "Perhaps the most remarkable finding in the Voices study is that the English language is as diverse as ever, despite our increased mobility and constant exposure to other accents and dialects through TV and radio". When discussing
4550-464: The declaration of the republic. Witwatersrand and the Rand are names for the conurbation that developed along the range , although the terms are falling into disuse and Witwatersrand was the "W" in PWV (Pretoria-Witwatersrand-Vereeniging), the initial name of Gauteng province. In this context, it has lent its name to institutions including the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits University) and
4641-501: The defunct Rand Afrikaans University (RAU, now part of the University of Johannesburg ), and to towns and regions such as the East Rand , West Rand and Randburg . The Witwatersrand plateau consists of a 5 000 -to- 7 000 -metre-thick (3.1–4.3 mi) layer of mainly sedimentary rocks laid down over a period of about 260 million years, starting approximately 2.97 billion years ago. The entire series of rocks, known as
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#17327726914344732-485: The east, through Johannesburg and Roodepoort , to Krugersdorp in the west (see the diagram at left below). The scarp forms the northern edge of a 7-to-10-kilometre-wide (4–6 mi) plateau (or ridge) which rises about 200 m (660 ft) above the surrounding plains of the Highveld . A number of picturesque Johannesburg suburbs, including Observatory , Linksfield Ridge and Upper Houghton are located along
4823-464: The first glaciation episodes on earth. Within 60 million years, up to 4500 m of sediment had accumulated on the granite base, to become the "West Rand Group" of rocks that contribute over 60% of the total thickness of the Witwatersrand Supergroup. Uplifting of the north of the Kaapvaal Craton, in addition to orogenesis (mountain formation), towards the end of the deposition of
4914-475: The geology of the Witwatersrand Basin and its exposure in the Johannesburg region, was a massive meteor impact 110 km to the south-west of Johannesburg 2.02 billion years ago. The impact was close to the present village of Vredefort, which has given its name to the geological remnant of this immense event: the Vredefort Dome. Not only are the remains of this impact among the oldest on Earth, but it
5005-675: The gold that is accounted for today. Not all the conglomerates contain gold, and of those that do (known as "reefs" by the miners), the gold is not uniformly distributed throughout the layer, but tends to occur in streaks, where the pebbles that make up the conglomerate are larger than elsewhere. Here the gold is associated with other minerals, especially iron pyrite and uraninite , as well as carbon rich materials such as kerogen , or bitumen , which occurs in small balls less than 1 mm (0.04 in) in size, called "flyspeck carbon", or as continuous layers about 10–20 mm (0.4–0.8 in) thick. The gold-bearing conglomerates occur chiefly in
5096-445: The heavy materials brought down from the mountains were deposited: large pebbles, and heavy minerals, such as gold , iron pyrite , and uraninite . The gold was in its free elemental form. Cyanobacteria grew in relative abundance in these mineral rich waters. The kerogen , or bitumen , that is found in association with the gold deposits almost certainly represents what remains of these Archean photosynthesizing micro-organisms. It
5187-624: The historic Witwatersrand Gold Rush . Harrison is believed to have sold his claim for less than £10 before leaving the area, and he was never heard from again. Harrison's original Zoekers' (in English: seekers', or prospectors') Claim No 19 was declared a national monument in 1944, and named Harrison's Park. The park is on the busy Main Reef Road, immediately west of Nasrec Road. In 1887 Cecil John Rhodes registered "The Gold Fields of South Africa" in London, South Africa's first mining house, with
5278-404: The idea of two different morphemes, one that causes the double negation, and one that is used for the point or the verb. Standard English in the United Kingdom, as in other English-speaking nations, is widely enforced in schools and by social norms for formal contexts but not by any singular authority; for instance, there is no institution equivalent to the Académie française with French or
5369-416: The impact centre. There are no gold deposits in these outcrops. The meteor impact, however, lowered the Witwatersrand basin inside the crater. This protected it from erosion later on; but, possibly more importantly, bringing it to the surface close to the crater rim, near Johannesburg. In fact, apart from the Witwatersrand outcrops (i.e. where these rocks are exposed at the surface) in the immediate vicinity of
5460-403: The last southern Midlands accent to use the broad "a" in words like bath or grass (i.e. barth or grarss ). Conversely crass or plastic use a slender "a". A few miles northwest in Leicestershire the slender "a" becomes more widespread generally. In the town of Corby , five miles (8 km) north, one can find Corbyite which, unlike the Kettering accent, is largely influenced by
5551-408: The later Norman occupation led to the grafting onto that Germanic core of a more elaborate layer of words from the Romance branch of the European languages. This Norman influence entered English largely through the courts and government. Thus, English developed into a "borrowing" language of great flexibility and with a huge vocabulary . Dialects and accents vary amongst the four countries of
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#17327726914345642-401: The mass internal migration to Northamptonshire in the 1940s and given its position between several major accent regions, it has become a source of various accent developments. In Northampton the older accent has been influenced by overspill Londoners. There is an accent known locally as the Kettering accent, which is a transitional accent between the East Midlands and East Anglian . It is
5733-477: The memorial and fenced off the 40 acres. On the columns are the names of members of the raised Rand regiments who lost their lives in the war and is made up of members of the Bethune's Mounted Infantry, Commander in Chiefs Bodyguard, Johannesburg Mounted Rifles, Thorneycroft's Mounted Infantry, South African Light Horse , Imperial Light Horse, Railway Pioneer Regiment , Imperial Light Infantry and Rand Rifles. Sir Lionel Philips would pay for, from his personal funds,
5824-416: The memorial. On 30 November 1910, Field Marshall the Duke of Connaught and Lord Methuen reviewed a group of volunteers at Milner Park before being accompanied by a detachment from the Imperial Light Horse to the Sachsenwald Plantation (Saxonwold). There in front of a solemn gathering, the duke laid the corner-stone to the future memorial. The site had only been approved a month before the Duke's visit by
5915-401: The north and west. Rhenium - osmium isotope studies indicate that the gold in those mineral deposits came from unusual 3 billion year old mantle -derived intrusions known as komatiite , present in the greenstone belts. Apart from the obvious hollowing out of the rocks below southern Johannesburg, causing unpredictable sinkholes, surface instabilities and earth tremors, the bringing to
6006-415: The north formed wide braided river deltas , into some of which rich deposits of gold were deposited. The resulting 2500 m thick layer of rock is termed the "Central Rand Group". The "West Rand Group" and "Central Rand Group" of rocks together form the "Witwatersrand Supergroup", the full horizontal extent of which is termed the Witwatersrand Basin. There were no continents during the early stages of
6097-463: The north-east to Theunissen in the south-west, and 150 km (93 mi) wide stretching from Steynsrus in the south-east to Coligny in the north-west, with a small subsidiary basin at Kinross . Gold occurs only along the northern and western margins of this basin, but not in a continuous band. The gold-bearing rocks are limited to six sites where Archean rivers from the north and west formed fan deltas, with many braided channels, before flowing into
6188-442: The old provinces of Transvaal and the Orange Free State , and consists of a 5000–7000 m thick layer of Archean , mainly sedimentary rocks laid down over a period of about 260 million years, starting about 3000 million years ago. The entire series of rocks, known as the "Witwatersrand Supergroup" consists of quartzites , banded ironstones , mudstones , tillites , conglomerates and some marine lava deposits. Most of
6279-685: The phenomenon is called, has become a major ecological problem, because it dissolves many of the heavy elements, such as the uranium , cadmium , lead , zinc , copper , arsenic and mercury found in the mine dumps, facilitating their passage into surface water and ground water. The tailings ponds contain an average of 100 mg/kg of U 3 O 8 , and uranium levels are measureable in human hair. Sulfuric acid also erodes concrete and cement structures, resulting in structural damage to buildings and bridges. Although gold had been discovered in various locations in South Africa, such as Barberton and Pilgrim's Rest , as well as at several sites near
6370-445: The scarp, overlooking the rest of northern Johannesburg with views up to the Magaliesburg (although locals refer to segments of the scarp using area-specific names, such as Linksfield Ridge , Parktown Ridge or Observatory Ridge ). The entire plateau-like structure is also often called the Witwatersrand. The plateau's elevation above sea-level is between 1,700 and 1,800 metres (5,600–5,900 ft). The Witwatersrand plateau forms
6461-535: The sedimentation of the fine grain mud was affected by cyclic episodes with more or less precipitation of iron oxides. The result was alternating red and beige layers of mud which, when consolidated, became banded ironstones . As the sea deepened, finer grained and muddy sediments accumulated. Changing geographical conditions resulted in the accumulation of a wide variety of sediments, ranging from mud, to sand, to gravel, and banded ironstones . Tillite deposits, dating from 2.95 billion years ago, are indicative of
6552-534: The sources differ, with some calling it Nike (the Greek winged goddess of victory) while others – in the interest of reconciliation between the English and Afrikaaner populations – referred to it as an "angel of peace". The Lutyens Trust says the initial design was for a triumphal angel, but the final design was one of an angel of peace. The memorial would be known as the Kakiemonument (' khaki monument') by
6643-647: The south eastern portion of this microcontinent below sea level. The floor of this newly formed "Witwatersrand sea" consisted of smoothly eroded granites . Sandy sediments brought in by rivers from the north started being deposited on the granite about 2.97 billion years ago. This sandy layer eventually became compressed to form the Orange Grove Quartzite, the lowermost layer of the Witwatersrand Supergroup. This quartzite layer can be seen lying on its granite base in Johannesburg , where it forms
6734-468: The southern edge of the plateau. Gold is found in the conglomerate strata of the younger members of the Supergroup, locally referred to as banket . The abundance of this gold is without a natural equal anywhere else in the world. Over 40,000 tonnes (44,000 short tons) have been mined from these rocks since this precious metal was first discovered here in 1886. This accounts for approximately 22% of all
6825-421: The surface of rocks that had been laid down in oxygen-free conditions had unforeseen effects. Iron pyrite (FeS 2 ), which is relatively plentiful in the gold ores of the Witwatersrand, oxidises to insoluble ferric oxide (Fe 2 O 3 ) and sulfuric acid (H 2 SO 4 ). Thus, when mine waste comes into contact with oxygenated rainwater, sulfuric acid is released into the ground water. Acid mine drainage , as
6916-603: The theft of work tools worth £500 from a van at the Sprucefield park and ride car park in Lisburn. A football team can be treated likewise: Arsenal have lost just one of 20 home Premier League matches against Manchester City. This tendency can be observed in texts produced already in the 19th century. For example, Jane Austen , a British author, writes in Chapter 4 of Pride and Prejudice , published in 1813: All
7007-441: The total world output. Silver , uranium , and iridium are recovered as gold-refining by-products. The Witwatersrand basin was created during the Archean Eon, and is therefore amongst the oldest geological structures on Earth. It was laid down in two stages, over the course of 260 million years starting just short of 3 billion years ago. The first phase, lasting 60 million years, consisted of sedimentary deposits in
7098-695: The town council and no architect or design had been finalised. The memorial was designed in 1911 by architect Sir Edwin Lutyens , before he became famous for his war memorials after the end of the First World War . The design for the memorial was a 20-metre-tall (66 ft) stone four-arched structure which was completed in 1913. The design of the memorial is said to have been based on the Arc de Triomphe in Paris as well as other Roman triumphal arches . The town council laid out five vistas that would lead up to
7189-403: The traditional accent of Newcastle upon Tyne , 'out' will sound as 'oot', and in parts of Scotland and North-West England, 'my' will be pronounced as 'me'. Long vowels /iː/ and /uː/ are diphthongised to [ɪi] and [ʊu] respectively (or, more technically, [ʏʉ], with a raised tongue), so that ee and oo in feed and food are pronounced with a movement. The diphthong [oʊ] is also pronounced with
7280-510: The uninterrupted removal of a several kilometres thick layer of deposits from the surface of the Southern African Plateau in the relatively recent geological past: i.e. the past 150 million years, but especially during the last 20 million years. The vast majority of the Earth's gold and other heavy metals are locked up in the earth's core . Evidence from tungsten isotope studies indicates that most gold in
7371-426: The upper, younger layers of the Witwatersrand Supergroup of rocks, on the southern side of the Witwatersrand plateau. The Witwatersrand Supergroup strata which reach the surface in Johannesburg dip downwards to the south at an angle of about 30°. From there on they are almost everywhere, with very few exceptions (see below), covered by younger rocks. Gold mining in these buried portions of the Witwatersrand Supergroup
7462-706: The war or in concentration camps, were remembered at the ceremony. In 2015, the City of Johannesburg budgeted R1,000,000 to restore the memorial which included cleaning the sculpture and adding a protective coating. Other work carried out to restore the memorial was the introduction of storm drainage, as the stone blocks had moved out of alignment due to years of excessive moisture in the ground. Witwatersrand The Witwatersrand ( UK : / w ɪ t ˈ w ɔː t ər z r æ n d , - r ɑː n d / , US also / ˈ w ɪ t w ɔː t ər z -/ ; Afrikaans pronunciation: [ˌvətˌvɑːtəɾsˈɾant] ; locally
7553-568: The world are good and agreeable in your eyes. However, in Chapter 16, the grammatical number is used. The world is blinded by his fortune and consequence. Some dialects of British English use negative concords, also known as double negatives . Rather than changing a word or using a positive, words like nobody, not, nothing, and never would be used in the same sentence. While this does not occur in Standard English, it does occur in non-standard dialects. The double negation follows
7644-526: Was notably limited . However, the degree of influence remains debated, and it has recently been argued that its grammatical influence accounts for the substantial innovations noted between English and the other West Germanic languages. Initially, Old English was a diverse group of dialects, reflecting the varied origins of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England. One of these dialects, Late West Saxon , eventually came to dominate. The original Old English
7735-534: Was alluvial gold in an old riverbed, that had been tilted as a result of earth movements. However, when it was found that, traced downdip, the conglomerate was not merely developed for the narrow width of a river, but continued in depth, there came the realisation that this conglomeratic zone was part of a sedimentary succession. Harrison had stumbled on the Main Reef conglomerate (part of the "Johannesburg Subgroup" of rocks — see illustration above). The conglomerate
7826-532: Was brought to an abrupt end by massive outpourings of lava, which form the Ventersdorp lavas which erupted 2.715 billion years ago. The cause of these lava outpourings is a matter of speculation. It might be related to the collision of the Kaapvaal Craton with the Zimbabwe Craton , eventually to become knitted together to form a single continental unit. A final event that had a major impact on
7917-419: Was embedded in a conglomerate, it was first assumed that this was alluvial gold in an old riverbed, that had been tilted as a result of earth movements. However, when it was found that, traced downdip , the conglomerate was not merely developed for the narrow width of a river, but continued in depth, there came the realisation that this conglomeratic zone was part of a sedimentary succession . The conglomerate
8008-422: Was never a truly mixed language in the strictest sense of the word; mixed languages arise from the cohabitation of speakers of different languages, who develop a hybrid tongue for basic communication). The more idiomatic, concrete and descriptive English is, the more it is from Anglo-Saxon origins. The more intellectual and abstract English is, the more it contains Latin and French influences, e.g. swine (like
8099-548: Was quickly traced east and westward for a total continuous distance of 50 km (31 mi) to define what became known as the "Central Rand Gold Field". Harrison declared his claim with the then-government of the Zuid Afrikaanse Republiek (ZAR), and in September 1886 President Paul Kruger issued a proclamation declaring nine farms public mining diggings, starting on 20 September 1886. This heralded
8190-497: Was quickly traced east and westward for a total continuous distance of 50 km (31 mi) to define what became known as the "Central Rand Gold Field". It has since been established that the rocks that make up the Witwatersrand Ridge dip downwards and southwards to form the largely underground "Witwatersrand Basin" which covers an elliptical area with a 300 km (190 mi) long major axis from Evander in
8281-532: Was then influenced by two waves of invasion: the first was by speakers of the Scandinavian branch of the Germanic family, who settled in parts of Britain in the eighth and ninth centuries; the second was the Normans in the 11th century, who spoke Old Norman and ultimately developed an English variety of this called Anglo-Norman . These two invasions caused English to become "mixed" to some degree (though it
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