CHAPTER IX. 



JUNGLE LIFE AT AREMU. 



SOME PAGES FROM MY DIARY. 



(By C. William Beebe.) 



YEN more to the Gold Mine of Aremu than to Hoorie is 

 the application " island " or " oasis " in the jungle, appro- 

 priate. The clearing is about twenty acres in extent, approxi- 

 mately circular, with the magnificent forest trees crowding 

 densely to the very edge. The bungalow and mine shaft 

 are on the summit of a symmetrical hill, which slopes evenly 

 and steeply down on all sides. The hill is about a hundred 

 feet in height and yet the trees far down at the foot tower 

 high above it. 



The concession includes about seven and a half square 

 miles, and in many places where the rock outcrops, well 

 paying deposits of gold are visible. At Aremu there is a 

 soft quartz ledge about eight feet wide running almost 

 vertically and rich in gold. Often the metal is visible and a 

 small lens shows the yellow crystals encrusting the white 

 matrix. 



The first day at Aremu we went down in the mining 

 bucket, two and two each clinging to the wire cable and 

 balancing the opposite person. Down and down went the 

 swaying bucket, slowly revolving the heat and sunshine 

 of the upper air replaced by the cool darkness damp and 

 chilly with rich earthen, clayey smells. Eighty-five feet 

 below the surface the four leads began, one a hundred feet 

 along the vein. This consists of a ferrugineous gold-bear - 



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