Читать книгу Great Zimbabwe, Mashonaland, Rhodesia. An account of two years' examination work in 1902-4 on behalf of the government of Rhodesia онлайн

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(b) In 1903 the writer cleared the soil away from the gap between the older and later walls, and found that they were widely different in construction; that the later and narrower wall approached the older and well-built and wider wall at an oblique angle; and that the end of the older wall is broken and not finished off as are other ends of ancient walls. In a trench made at a distance of twelve yards west of the gap, and on the curve the older wall, if continued, would have passed, a mass of buried masonry, which might have been a portion of the old wall, was disclosed.

(c) Dr. Hahn, the leading expert in South Africa in chemical metallurgy, analysed the soil underlying the foundation of the west wall, and pronounced it to be composed of disintegrated furnace slag and ashes containing gold and iron. The ground to the west of the west wall has always been the spot at which gold prospectors have washed the soil for gold, and here gold crucibles and scorifiers are to be found. This soil contains 73 per cent. of silica, and would make an excellent foundation for walls, and the west wall is built right along this bed of furnace slag, which is about 2 ft. in depth, many yards wide, and extends from north to south.