ANCIENT GOLD MINING IN THE SUDAN 



213 



of them would be found ; in any case the smoke therefrom should be visible on the 



walls of the mine, especially round such niches as might be utilised for their support. 



But no such blackened spots are found and the marks are absent altogether. The 



marked absence of smoke stains on the walls raises anotlier point. If, as related by Illumination 



Agatharchides and Diodorus, tire has been employed in the working faces as a means 



of breaking down the quartz, some indication of this should remain at the present day. 



In some of the Egyptian mines with which I am acquainted the working faces are smeared 



with soot and smoke, and powdered charcoal is observable everywhere. There is also 



a characteristic conchoidal appearance in a "burnt" end which is never observable in 



most of the working faces of the Sudan mines. Taking these things into consideration, 



and also the great scarcity of wood which must have prevailed then, as now, it is extremely 



doubtful if this firing process was ever employed in this country. 



Whatever the means of obtaining the quartz may have been, the subsequent treatment 

 thereof cannot have differed greatly from the accounts given by Agatharchides. There 

 seems, however, to have been some process of hand selection which escaped that writer's 

 observation, for from the abundance of partially reduced quartz found in the neighbour- 

 hood of the works, it is evident that not one-half of that taken from the mines underwent 

 the final crushing. The selective process was probably based on the occurrence of visible 

 gold in the stone, or perhaps on some attendant phenomena of which we do not possess the 

 secret. In any case, it was efficient in result, for the rejected stone is rarely worth more 

 than a dwt. or two per ton, and has never been found to contain visible gold. 



The preliminary breaking down of the quartz as it left the mine was effected by stone 

 hammers, roughly cuboidal in shape, which have become worn on every side, with a slight 

 indentation in the centre of each face. The anvil was a hard stone slab, or as often as not 

 the less weathered surfaces of the rocks, which are seen to be worn into a multitude of 

 holes. The rubbing mills, as distinguished from the grinding mills, are flat pieces of the 

 hardest rock procurable, usually dolerite or basalt, and the muUers — from 5 to 15 lb. 

 weight — are generally of the same material. The latter being worn on both sides, are 

 usually lenticular, the hollow in the stone being elliptical in shape, about 20 inches by 

 15 inches, and often as much as 4 inches deep. Frequently the stone has been turned and 

 a similar hollow worn on the other side until both have met. 



The circular grinding mills are from 18 to 22 inches in diameter, the nether stone Apparatus 

 being also of exceedingly hard rock. The mullers, which are pivoted in the centre, are "^"""^ '" ''"^ 



" ^ ■' ' r vicinity of 



usually of a softer material, a coarse-grained granite being the favourite, and the original the mines 



weight would be about 50 or GO lb 



stone, and rotation was 



effected by means of a 



short stick inserted in a 



shallow notch. Some of 



these mills are worn to a 



dfipth of eight or ten inches, 



and, like the elliptical ones, 



many of them have been 



turned and used on the 



reverse side. It is a curious 



fact that very few of these 



nether stones remain in- fis. «.-Kasra=.8howinscon.t™«iouotwa,hin6TaW6 



tact. When not worn through they have in nearly every case been broken at the side. 



The quartz was fed tlirough a hole in the upper 



Elevation Part Section 



O I 



