TIN MINING IN PERAK. 31 



land at the side of the valley. It would appear that this 

 " karang " is a portion of an old river terrace, and that it will 

 be found not to extend into the alluvium of the present valley. 

 The source of the merciuy is so far unknown. In Upper Perak 

 a few globules Avere noticed some years ago in some auriferous 

 wash -dirt, but the gold was not combined with the mercury. 



The points which seem to be deserving of attention in 

 respect to alluvial auriferous tin mining as carried out in the 

 State, are, firstly, that great im2)rovenients could be made in 

 washing the "karang" by employing longer sluice boxes with less 

 grade and less head of water, so as to effect the saving of the 

 finer particles of gold. The box in use in most of the mines is 

 the " lanchut kichil," which is a form that is so defective that it 

 should not be allowed to be used at all in any mine. The "long 

 tom," or " lanchut besar " as it is called here, is much better, but 

 even this has long been superseded on the gold fields of the moi-e 

 advanced countries by the regular gold sluice. Only one of 

 these sluices has been fitted up in the State as yet, and the 

 experiment wiU be watched with great interest by all those 

 connected with mining. It is unfortunately imlikely that the 

 Chinese could be induced to adopt it even if it proves a complete 

 success, as they are in Australia and California the only miners 

 who still cling to the " long tom," cradle, and other obsolete 

 forms of washing boxes although they have the oppoi'tunity of 

 copying the better forms used by the white miners working on 

 the same fields. 



The second point is the separation of the gold from the 

 tin -sand in a cheaper and more effective manner, and the 

 saving of the very considerable amount of gold which is now 

 always left in the sand, and goes into the smelting furnace, 

 where it is utterly lost. The plans which suggest themselves 

 are amalgamation, chlorination, and the cyanide process. 



The former appears at the first blush to be an excessively 

 simple matter, but in reality there are many serious drawbacks 

 to the carrying out of any of the ordinary plans of effecting 

 amalgamation. The principal of these arise from the high 

 specific gravity and the comparatively large size of the grains of 

 the tin - sand. The weight of the tin makes it difficult to ensure 

 that the gold finds its way down to the mercury, and also 

 prevents any mercury which in the form of small globules gets 

 mixed with the tin -sand during the process from falling down 

 through it and re -uniting with the bulk of the mercury at the 

 termination of the pi'ocess. There is a double loss in conse- 

 quence, firstly by unamalgamated gold and secondly by mecha- 



