20 TIN MINING IN PERAK. 



As a rule the working of alluvial tin and tin and gold is 

 precisely the same, excepting for some slight differences in the 

 final separation of the two materials. Near Tapah, however, 

 there is a variety of ground sluicing which does not seem to be 

 practised in any other part of the State, and as most of it is 

 carried on for the extraction of auriferous tin -sand it may be 

 conveniently described here. 



The land which is worked in this way is hill land which has 

 no water supi)ly. The method of procedure is to cut a system of 

 ditches on the face and top of the hill. The upper ditches are 

 close together, often not more than four feet apart, and a very 

 curious feature is that the earth between the ditches is formed 

 into beds and sweet potatoes and other vegetables are planted 

 and grown on them until such times as the sub -soil is reached 

 and they will no longer thrive. This gives the upper portion of 

 these mines the appearance of market gardens. The gardening 

 is carried on in the usual Chinese fashion, and the surface soil 

 rapidly disappears, as it does on all their gardens ; but it differs 

 in that after the top layer of earth has gone it is not abandoned, 

 for the second harvest then begins, the tin and gold beginning to 

 make their appearance in the ditches as the vegetables fail. 



The miners dig in between the ditches with "changkols" 

 and so loosen the earth on the face of the hill, and when the rain 

 comes the loosened soil is carried down into the horizontal 

 channels and from them into the large ditch, and so do-\vn the 

 hill. When the rain begins the miners put on their Chinese 

 water- proof coats and go to work in the ditches, opening them 

 up where they get choked, breaking down the sides, digging the 

 bottoms and stirring up the mixture of earth and water in them. 

 Unlike other forms of mining the men work hardest when the 

 rain is falling, as they say " it rains tin." 



After each shower the surface of the ground is all dug over, 

 and loose earth is thrown into the lower parts of the deeper 

 ditches. The bottoms of the ditches themselves being also dug 

 up from time to time so that they may sink at the same rate as 

 the ground in between them. 



At suitable spots small reservoirs are constructed on the 

 upper parts of the mine, each one being provided with a small 

 system of ditches to collect sufficient rain water to fill it. This 

 store of water can be used to clean up the ditches by letting 

 it slowly run out while the men work in them with " changkols," 

 and it is also used in what is called "booming." This is nearly 

 filling the ditches with loose earth and then letting the whole of 



