¥ > eS TS A ee ee ees ee 
510 NATURE [March 30, 1882 
peninsula, it is possible that much more remains. 
(cuite recently the gold fields of Madras have attracted 
a. great deal of public interest, and a large amount of 
capital is being diverted to their exploration. For 
writing a history of British gold mining in India the time 
has not yet come, and we can only hope with Prof. Ball 
“that the actual results of this enterprive may come up 
to the high standard of success which has been predicted 
for it.”’ 
Amidst a Variety of most interesting details as to the 
various gold diggings and gold workings in India, we 
select the following account of the Thibetan Gold Mines, 
which for many centuries and to the present day, send a 
re rular supply of gold to India. 
“Of the very highest interest are the accounts of the 
Thibetan gold mines, which are given by the Pundits 
attached to the Indian Survey for the purpose of exploring 
countries north of the Himalayas. .Unwittingly these 
admirable native servants of the Government of India 
have furnished facts which have enabled Sir Henry 
Rawlinson, and independently Prof. Frederic Schiern, 
Professor of History at the University of Copenhagen, to 
clear up a mystery which has been a puzzle to the his- 
torians and philosophers of many countries for upwards 
of 2000 years. A translation of Prof. Schiern’s paper,’ 
by Anna M. H. Childers, will be found in the ‘ Indian 
Antiquary.” It is a most remarkable example of learned 
research, and one very difficult to give in abstract. It is 
entitled ‘ The Tradition of the Gold-digging Ants.’ But 
perhaps before giving the conclusions which Sir Henry 
Rawlinson and Prof, Schiern have arrived at, it will be 
best in this place to briefly describe the Pundits’ obser- 
vations :— 
‘During the expedition of 1867 the Pundit who had 
been at Lassa fell in at Thok Jalung, an important gold- 
field in the province cf Nari Khorsam, with a large 
encampment of Thibetan miners, and took the opportu- 
nity to gain information relative to the working of the 
mines. In the third expedition, in 1868, another Pundit 
passed on as far as Rudok, at the north-west extremity of 
Chinese Thibet on the frontier of Ladak, and on his way 
back from Rudok visited the gold-fields of Thok Nian- 
mo, Thok Sarlung,’, and Thok Jarlung. The map which 
accompanies Major Montgomery's narrative of the journeys 
of the Pundits gives in addition the gold-fields of Thok 
Munna‘, Thok Ragyok, Thok Ragung, and Thok Dalung.’ 
. ... ‘The miners’ camp at Thok Jarlung, according to 
the measurements of the Pundits, is 16,300 feet above the 
sea-level. 
“The cold is intense, and the miners in winter are 
thickly clad in furs. 
‘The miners do not merely remain under ground when 
at work, but their small black tents, which are made of a 
felt-like material, manufactured from the hair of the Yak, 
are set in a series of pits, with steps leading down to 
them ... seven or cight feet below the surface of the 
ground.’ ‘Spite of the cold the diggers prefer working 
in winter; and the number of their tents, which in sum- 
mer amounts to 300, rises to nearly 600 in winter. They 
prefer the winter, as the frozen soil then stands well, and 
is not likely to trouble them much by falling in.’ 
“ They are occasionally attacked by bands of robbers, 
who carry off their gold. 
“Sir Henry Rawlinson’s remarks on these reports of 
the Pundits’ researches and travels are as follows :!}— 
““* Now, then, for the first time, we have an explanation 
* Verhand Kgl Dan‘schen Gesellsch. der Wis ensch. for 1870. Printed 
sepsrately in Danish, German, and French. 
2 Vol. iv. p. 225. 
3 ‘Thok Sarlung had at one time been the chief gold-field of the district, 
** but had in a great measure been abandoned on the discovery of the Thek 
Jarlung gold-field The Pundit passed a great excavation some 30 to 40 
feet deep, 200 feet in width, and two miles m Jength, from which the gold 
had been extracted.""—Your. As. Soc., Bengal, vol. xxxix., Pt. 2, p. 53 
1870 
4 Pall Mall Gazette, March 116, 1869, quoted in ‘‘ Indian Antiquary,”’ 
p- 225. 
of the circumstances under which so large a quantity of 
gold is, as is well known to be the case, exported to the 
west from Khoten, and finds its way into India from 
Thibet ; and it is probable that the search for gold in 
this region has been going on from a very remote anti- 
quity, since no one can read the ex-Pundit’s account of 
Thibetan miners ‘living intents some seven or eight feet 
below the surface of the ground, and collecting the exca- 
vated earth in heaps previous to washing the gold out of 
the soil,’ without being reminded of the description which 
Herodotus gives of the ‘ants in the Jands of the Indians 
bordering on Kaspatyrus (or Kashmir) which made their 
dwellings underground, and threw up sand heaps as they 
burrowed, the sand which they threw up being full of 
gold.’ 
“Prof. Schiern points out that the tradition was men- 
tioned in writings of the middle ages, and those by 
Arabian authors It survived among the Turks. Strabo 
and Albertus Magnus treated the whole s‘ory as a fiction. 
Xivrey supposed that the animals had become extinct 
owing to the awr7 sacra fames. Major Rennell supposed 
that the dwellers in mounds were /e7mifes or white ants. 
Humboldt’s observations in Mexico on the habit of certain 
ants to carry about shining particles of hyalith was quoted 
by those who believed that the animals were really ants. 
Other authorities suggested that they were marmots, 
jackals, foxes, or hyenas. Pliny having stated that 
horns of the Indian ant were pre:erved in the temple of 
Hercules at Erythrz, Samuel Wahl, who maintained the 
hyzena theory, proved equal to the difficulty by suggesting 
that the horns might have been a /usus nature. Prof. 
Schiern ingeniously argued that the horns had been 
taken from the skins of animals which formed the 
garments of the miners. It seems possible, however, 
that they were samples of the pickaxes made of sheep’s 
horns, which, as is mentioned above, are used to the 
present day by the miners in Ladak. 
“Prof. Schiern further points out tbat ancient writers 
say that the ants worked chiefly in winter, and connects 
this with the statement of the Pundit above quoted. 
“Tn conclusion he writes :-— 
““ For us the story partakes no longer of the marvellous. 
The gold-digging ants were originally neither real ants, 
as the ancients supposed, nor, as many eminent men of 
learning have supposed, larger animals mistaken for ants 
on account of their subterranean habits, but men of flesh 
and blood, and these men Thibetan miners, whose mode 
of life and dress were in the remotest antiquity exactly 
what they are at the present day.’”’ 
The quotations that we have given will show the 
general reader what he may expect to find in this volume, 
in addition to the more scientific accounts of the several 
dia ond and gold mines. 
(To be continued.) 
PRECIOUS CORAL 
W HILST preparing a set of lectures on Corals, lately 
delivered at the Royal Institution, 1 made some 
inquiries as to the present state of the fi heries of precious 
coral from Messrs. Greck and Co., coral merchants, of 
Rathbone Place, who also have an establishment at 
Naples. They exhibited a very fine series of examples of 
raw and worked coral at one of my lectures, and also sent 
me the following short notes on the Italian and Sicilian 
coral fisheries, partly taken from an Italian newspaper, 
but which contain some facts which may be interesting 
to the readers of NATURE. I was shown a large number 
of the Sciacca specimens, all attached to groups of bivalve 
shells or pieces of dead coral. The blackened coral is 
described by Lacaze Duthiers in his famous monograph 
as “corail noirci dans la vase.” It is very possible that 
the blackening substance is binoxide of manganese, since 
we dredged, in deep water during the Cha//enger Expedi- 
