TIN MINING IN PERAK. 25 



fine in grain and are not difficult to separate from the mercury 

 at the termination of the process if the following directions are 

 observed. Take the sand and put it into an ordinary white wine 

 bottle, then add some water and common washing soda and 

 shake it up well, pour off the water and add more, and repeat. 

 Now add mercury, to which, if possible, a little sodium amalgam 

 has been added, in the proporation of three or four ounces for 

 each ounce of gold in the sample. Partly fill up with water and 

 shake well, but not too violently, so as to avoid flouring the 

 mercury, that is reducing it to the state of very fine globules, for 

 when in this state it is difficult to get them to reunite into a 

 mass again, and much of the mercury may be lost in conse- 

 quence. After about ten minutes shaking turn out the whole 

 contents of the bottle into a washing dish and shake up in 

 water so as to induce all the mercury to sink to the bottom 

 of the dish and then carefully wash off the tin, " amaug," etc. 

 This will have to be repeated at least once to ensure getting 

 back all the mercury. It will be found advisable from time to 

 time during the progress of the washing to run off the mercury 

 into another dish, or it becomes unmanagable. The mercury 

 having all been collected is put into a piece of wash - leather and 

 bound up tight with string. It is then squeezed through the 

 pores of the leather into a dish. The gold in the form of 

 amalgam will remain in the wash - leather as a pasty mass, which 

 is to be put into an iron retort and heated till the mercury is 

 driven off and the mass regains its gold colour. This retorted 

 gold, which is spongy in texture, is then to be melted up with a 

 little borax in a plumbago crucible and cast into an ingot in an 

 iron mould. 



" Blowing " is also employed by European miners in 

 Australia and on other gold fields to free alluvial gold dust 

 from heavy iron -sand, etc. It is effected in an iusti'ument 

 called a "blower." This is a shallow scoop of tin-plate open 

 at one end. The whole operation is very similar to that just 

 described. The gold dust is placed in the blower which is 

 gently shaken while the operator blows with his mouth along 

 the surface of the contained gold dust so as to separate the 

 impurities from the precious metal. 



It is usual to wash the tin -sand over two, three or even 

 more times in the manner described before it is sold to the 

 smelter or exporter. It would be thought that the coarsest 

 gold would be separated out fii-st, but such is not by any means 

 the case. In fact after it leaves the hands of the last washer, 

 quite large sized grains may often be detected in it. In one 



