G4 GEOLOGY AND MINERAL RESOURCES OF SIKHIM. 



where the rock has not yielded a payiug proportion of ore, they are 

 contracted to a size barely sufficient to admit a man's body. Access 

 to the interior of the mines, therefore, is gained by crawling on "all 

 fours," and in the narrowest parts by lying flat on the face and 

 progressing after the manner of serpents. As a natural consequence 

 of such a primitive system, the excavations cannot be carried beyond 

 a very trifling depth, as compared to European mines. 



The ore is got out by manual labour, no machinery or even 

 blasting being resorted to. The tools generally used are an iron 

 hammer and an ordinary wedge or chisel (ckeni), which is held by a 

 striji of split bamboo twisted round it. Small picks are also sometimes 

 employed. The lights used are torches made of thin strips of bamboo 

 about a foot long, which burn for a minute and-a-half or even less. 

 This necessitates the presence of two men, one to hold the light, while 

 the other chisels out the ore. 



Mallet says the smoke from the bamboo is less irritating to the 

 eyes than that from other kinds of wood. No explosion from gas 

 has ever been known ; blasting by powder is very seldom resorted 

 to. 



The miners are all Mangars by race, and called Agris : the men 

 excavate the ore in large lumps and the women carry it to the surface 

 in very small bamboo baskets about 9 inches by 12 inches, wiiich are 

 called "jak;" they are of elongated form so as to be readily taken 

 along the narrow jjassages. Further, the jaks are taken out by relays 

 of men or boys, who push or carry them from one to the other. 

 From the pit's mouth women carry the ore away in ordinary baskets 

 to the nearest streams and wash it. 



After a jDreliminary breaking up of the larger pieces and rejection 

 of the refuse, the jjicked ore is broken up small on flat stones with 

 hammers of iron, and not now-a-days by hammers formed of quartzite 

 or other hard rock, tied into forked sticks as described by Mallet. This 

 pounded ore is called " dhan." This is roughly sorted, small pieces 

 of nearly jiure copper are taken direct to the miner's home, while the 

 more impure pieces are taken to a shed near a stream, where it is 

 beaten into coarse powder by heavy round hammers or in stone hand- 

 mills called " jhatoo." 



Near a convenient watercourse a succession of troughs called 

 "khali" are built up: the troughs are made of rough planks fixed on 

 the ground, one forming the bottom, which has a slight incline, and 

 the others fixed on edge. In form and size the troughs resemble 

 small coffins, but the top and lower end are open: ■vv'ater from 

 tlie stream is conducted into these troughs, which are placed one just 

 above another in a continuous straight line. The quantity of water 

 allowed to flow into the trough is regulated by a clay dam at the 



