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To: Bobby Yellin who wrote (12083)	5/23/1998 11:13:00 AM
From: Alex	Respond to of 116830

The following quote from 'The Golden Fleece' by Walter Stewart about sums up my feelings of where this new era has taken us. "It is as if we set out to create a place to sell tomatoes and have, instead, wound up with a market that sells, not tomatoes, but the right to buy and sell tomatoes, their stems, their leaves, skins, roots, and smell, tomatoes of the future, tomatoes unplanted and ungrown, and the land they haven't been planted or grown on, along with a side-bet on whether the farmer who hasn't planted them has a moustache. We can even, by shorting tomatoes, buy the rights to the future prosperity of tomato slugs and the hope that the whole crop will be wiped out by pestilence, making us rich. That should give free enterprise a boost."

To: Bobby Yellin who wrote (12083)	5/23/1998 3:32:00 PM
From: Clark Harris	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 116830

An interesting article -- I believe that it was rumored this week that Chase Manhatten was considering a merger with a German Bank. There appears to be much going on out of sight. Clark

To: Bobby Yellin who wrote (12083)	5/24/1998 10:37:00 AM
From: Bucky Katt	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 116830

BY--It may set off other panics, but as for gold, it is dead as long as the dollar remains strong. I have been saying that for years, but no one cares to understand. It is very simple--strong USD=weak gold-weak USD=strong gold. Nothing will change that simple equation.

To: Bobby Yellin who wrote (12083)	5/24/1998 3:23:00 PM
From: goldsnow	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 116830

FEATURE - S.Africa gold mine blasts to new world record 02:01 a.m. May 22, 1998 Eastern PART 1 By Darren Schuettler CARLETONVILLE, South Africa, May 22 (Reuters) - A ride down into the deepest mine in the world is an ear-popping rush in a man-sized bucket plunging nearly four km (2.5 miles) toward the earth's fiery core. Under tonnes of solid rock, hundreds of sweating miners are digging, blasting and scraping their way towards South Africa's new frontier -- ultra-deep mining. ''When people hear that we're going to four kilometres, they say 'Wow, it sounds like you're going to Mars...and mining in space suits','' said Dave Diering, a deep-mine expert for Anglogold Ltd, the world's biggest gold company. ''It's really a natural progression of what we've been doing for years.'' South Africa's gold mines, the backbone of the country since the late 19th century, are already the deepest in the world. With most of the shallow reserves gone, the industry is venturing even deeper in search of the rich ore. At Western Deep Levels Ltd, about 70 km (43.5 miles) from Johannesburg along the famed Witswatersrand basin, the mine's south shaft will become the deepest man-made point on earth next year. Miners have already dug to 3,737 metres, (12,200 feet) 40 metres (131 feet) shy of the mine's west shaft, the current world record holder at 3,777 metres (12,300 feet). They will eventually stop at 4,170 metres (13,600 feet) after the turn of the century. SOUTH AFRICAN GOLD MINING A TOUGH, DANGEROUS JOB Embedded deep in hard quartzite rock, South African gold is more difficult, expensive and dangerous to extract than North American or Australian mines where the precious metal sits closer to the surface.

To: Bobby Yellin who wrote (12083)	5/24/1998 3:25:00 PM
From: goldsnow	Respond to of 116830

Nearly 32,000 people work at Western Deep's three main shafts and a neighbouring mine -- most of them underground for eight hours a day, earning up to 1,500 rand ($295) a month. The day shift starts before dawn when workers enter the mine in high-speed lifts descending at 60 km an hour, reaching three km (1.86 miles) in a few minutes. From the shaft, they walk or take trains through tunnels for several km to the rock face. Working in cramped areas sometimes less than a metre high, they put in tunnel support and set explosive charges. The blasting after the day shift evacuates the mine can be felt in towns several kilometres away. The night shift then cleans out the gold -bearing ore which is hauled to the surface in huge buckets, or skips. After three decades and 1,530 tonnes of gold, Western Deep is running out of reserves. By ploughing 1.1 billion rand into deepening the south shaft, the mine plans to stay open to 2026 and produce another 475 tonnes of gold. BUCKET RIDE AS SMOOTH AS A BUICK ''This is the smoothest ride you'll ever get on this shift,'' said section manager Don Osbourn as he led a tour down the newly-extended shaft in a bucket resembling a beer can with its top sawn off. It holds 20 men or several tonnes of rock and glides through the dark hole like a Buick sedan on a U.S. interstate. ''It's a high risk job,'' said master sinker Jan Breek, an 18-year veteran of South Africa's mines. ''Ordinarily a slip and fall means a scraped knee, but a slip and fall here and it's down the shaft,'' said the barrel-chested shaft builder. Breek, who has suffered no serious mining injury but hurt his leg in a car crash, rides down the dark shaft standing on the bucket's edge like a sailor in ship's rigging. The bucket hits bottom -- 3,737 metres (12,200 feet) -- in less than two minutes. A squad of miners, clad in overalls, rubber boots and hard hats, work under soft lights in an area the size of a tennis court. They wear earplugs to drown out the roar of hydraulic drills biting into rock. It is nearly 30 degrees Celsius (80 degrees Fahrenheit) at these depths, but the heat would soar to a deadly 60 degrees Celsius (140 degrees Fahrenheit) if not for huge refrigeration units pumping cool air from the surface. DEADLY EARTH TREMOR A miner's deadliest enemies at these depths are earth tremors which can collapse a tunnel or rock face. A minimal tremor measuring 0.5 on the Richter scale can equal the force of 100 kg of explosives underground. Last year, a 3.1 tremor trapped 15 miners for several hours about three km (1.8 miles) underground before they were rescued in what was nicknamed the Great Escape. ''It's mother nature. You just touch the rock and it talks,'' said Dragan Amidzic, head of the mine's seismic team. Armed with listening stations scattered about the mine, Amidzic hopes to develop an early warning system that could give miners precious minutes to flee to a safer part of the tunnel before a tremor hits. His team recorded more than 7,400 tremors last month, ranging from minus one to four. Most occur after blasting when the mine is empty. Western Deep's safety record has improved, but it still battles with death and injury rates higher than mines in South Africa, North America and Australia. Industry wide, South Africa's gold mines are safer than years ago. But rock falls, pressure bursts, burning, explosions and other accidents still claimed 267 men and injured 5,449 according to provisional figures for 1997. ''If you look at the safety of these ultra-deep level mines, it's not good. But we have been mining there since the 1960s and we understand what the problems are and we've come up with a lot of solutions,'' Diering said. MINING MAY BE SAFER AT EVEN GREATER DEPTHS Ironically, experts believe mining will be safer as they move deeper into virgin rock. ''We sincerely believe mining at four km (2.4 miles) in virtually new territory using all the best we've got will be a whole lot safer than at three km where it's extensively mined out and the choices are limited,'' Diering said. Last month the industry and government launched Deepmine, a research project designed to see if mining at unthinkable depths of five km (3.1 miles) would be safe and profitable. The technical and safety challenges are enormous. The heat at five km can reach a blistering 70 degrees Celsius (158 degrees Fahrenheit) and a new mine could cost up to eight billion rand. The reward is a vast gold -rich area that may yield up to 800 tonnes of gold. The problem of getting there, working there and bringing the gold back has sparked some futuristic solutions. Some imagine colonies of miners living underground for several days at a time. Others see robots working around the clock with a new-age miner perched behind a video screen on the surface. But Diering dismisses these ideas as pure science fiction. ''We've been there for 20 years already and we're on our way to four kilometres without robots and science fiction.'' ''We're getting there with the technology we've got now and Deepmine has to include what we know now.'' ((Johannesburg newsroom 27 11 482 1003, newsroom+reuters.co.za)) ($ - 5.052 South African Rand) ^REUTERS@