Annual report on Nyasaland / Colonial Office.

  • Great Britain. Colonial Office.
Date:
[1960]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Annual report on Nyasaland / Colonial Office. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    99/228 (page 89)
    out in the laboratories of the Directorate of Overseas Geological Surveys enabled the more promising part of the hill to be defined for systematic sampling. Experiments aimed at the development of an economic method of concentrating the rare-earth minerals in a bulk sample from this selected area were in hand by the Warren Spring Laboratory (D.S.I.R.) in the United Kingdom at the end of the year. The Warren Spring Laboratory also began beneficiation tests on a sample of kyanite gneiss from Kapiridimba (Ncheu District). The field work connected with this investigation was completed in 1959 and the ultimate aims of the present project are the development of methods for producing concentrate containing at least 96 per cent, kyanite and for the production of a suitable, stable, non-porous refractory aggregate. Following the completion of the field examination at Kangankunde, a short investigation of the apatite and barytes deposits of Nathace Hill, Tundulu was carried out, trenches being constructed to intersect the main zone of phosphate-bearing rock and the principal barytes vein. This investigation was still in progress at the end of the year. Towards the end of the year, a programme of investigation of the graphite deposits in the Central Province was begun and trenching was started at a number of places decided after a regional reconnaissance had been carried out. The programme of research on carbonatites and related subjects was continued and attention was again directed principally towards those in the Tundulu area. The geologist immediately concerned with the investigation was engaged on studies at the Research Institute of African Geology at Leeds until the middle of the year and after his return was occupied mainly with petrological work and with the compila¬ tion of a departmental Memoir giving the results of his studies. The Inter-Territorial Geological Conference which takes place annually between the three Geological Surveys of the Federation was in 1960 held in Zomba from the 5th to 7th April, the local Survey acting as hosts. In addition to the technical sessions, where papers on subjects of common interest were read and discussed, and to field excursions, there was an administrative session and a meeting of the Geological Co-ordinating Committee. Active prospecting by the larger mining houses continued to decline and for a short period ceased entirely when Messrs. Laporte Titanium completed their examination of rutile-ilmenite deposits in the Port Herald area. However the Anglo-American Corporation began a widespread prospecting programme later in the year and a number of other mining organizations retained their prospecting rights in various parts of the country. Departmental publications issued during 1960 and now available from the Government Printer, Zomba, at the prices shown, were: