Historical accounts regarding the initial discovery of gold in South Africa point to several early prospectors and geologists who identified auriferous deposits during the mid-to-late nineteenth century. While various localized discoveries were noted earlier by travelers and individual diggers, the pivotal identification of the main Witwatersrand reef system—which triggered the legendary South African gold rush—is widely credited to independent prospectors and pioneer geologists such as George Harrison and Fred Struben in the 1880s.